The Deepest Secret (9 page)

She drives around the side of the building to the automated machine. She lines up the front right tire onto the metal track and rolls down her window to feed a twenty-dollar bill into the slot. She has four choices, and she picks the most expensive option, the Deluxe Showroom Wash. She presses the button and turns off the engine. The conveyor belt catches the wheels of her car and she bumps slowly forward. Soap squirts out in foamy silly string, neon green, lemon yellow, pink. Amy loved pink. Tyler used to sit in his car seat and kick his legs, laughing as long felt ribbons slapped the glass, waving and dancing as if they were underwater sea creatures.

Had Amy glanced toward her at that last moment and recognized her sitting behind the steering wheel?
Please. Let it have happened too quickly
. She pounds the steering wheel. This is not how things were supposed to go. This is not the life she wants. Hot tears stream down her cheeks. She bashes the steering wheel with her fists.
How could this have happened?

Her car sways and is pulled along, emerging onto the pavement beneath the glare of a streetlight. She stumbles out, unhooks the long tube from the wall, and turns it on, rasps the mouth of the vacuum against the carpet, drawing up every crumb of mud, every crushed blade of grass. The fender is crushed. White paint mars the metal.

She climbs back into the car, switches on the engine, and drives back around to feed in another bill. She scoops her change from the tray and lets the conveyor belt drag her through again. She weeps for Amy, for Charlotte, for her own children.

She goes through the carwash six more times, using up every bill in her purse, emptying her wallet of change, and scraping loose coins from the ashtray. The sun is lifting itself over the horizon by the time she finally heads home. There is no clerk standing behind the register watching her pull out. There’s only one car at the pump, the driver crouched beside a tire. He doesn’t even glance over as she accelerates away.

DAVID

T
he searchers are divided into groups. They will proceed on foot, methodically, covering every inch of soggy terrain, the nearby park and playground, the riverfront, all the places Amy could have wandered to and gotten lost. If they find anything, they are not to touch it but to call the police immediately. They have the hotline number. They have a photo of Amy and a description of what she’d last been seen wearing. David’s assigned a partner, the woman who works at the bank and who’s been involved in searches before, for a missing college student who turned up in another state. She tells him she called off work for this one. He tells her Amy’s like a daughter to him and his wife. Until he says this, he doesn’t realize it’s true.

Damn Charlotte, anyway. He hates himself for thinking it, but if she’d been a better mother, hadn’t been so obsessed with her new boyfriend, had kept a better eye on her daughter, his whole weekend
wouldn’t be fucked up. Then he thinks of his own daughter. What if it were Melissa everyone was looking for? He feels slightly sick, shuffles through every sodden pile of leaves, turns aside every stone to study the mud beneath, toes through the flattened clumps of grass uprooted by the rainstorm, looking for any trace that Amy had been there. A pink plastic barrette, a sequin from her T-shirt. But he finds nothing. Nothing at all.

The new neighbors are coming out of their house as David arrives home. Puddles gleam here and there. Branches hang low with wet leaves. The wife has her head down, the skirt of her dress weaving in and out through the motion of her legs; a little boy trudges behind her. The husband carries a red-and-blue-plaid infant’s car seat. He opens the back door of the car in their driveway, motions to his older kid to climb inside. Those early, sleep-deprived months with a newborn. Eve had called it sleep-depravity.

David gets out of the car and crosses toward them. “Hi,” he says, extending his hand. “David Lattimore.”

“Mark Ryland.” The man’s got a military look about him, his blond hair cropped close, his features chiseled, his brown eyes guarded. “This is my wife, Holly.”

They’re both so young, maybe in their early twenties. Had David ever been so youthful? It seems so far away to him now. “I understand my wife told you about our son,” he says. “I wanted to thank you for your understanding.”

“Sure. No problem.”

“Let us know if you need anything,” he says, glancing inside the car at the baby. Another boy, if the blue hat on the baby’s head is any indication. So Mark has two boys to go camping with and to take to ballgames. “Our daughter’s sixteen, if you’re looking for a babysitter.”

Mark Ryland nods. “Good to know.”

“We’d better go,” Holly says, and David nods, steps back.

There’s a weird vibe between the two. Well, it can’t be easy, moving into a new place with two young children, just before another child goes missing.

As David walks back to his waiting car, his garage door rolls up with a groaning protest. Melissa ducks beneath the rubber lip. “Finally,” she says. She climbs into the passenger seat, holding her riding boots. Her face is pale, her eyes shadowed. She’d probably stayed up late and only just now woken up. “Hurry,” she tells him. “Or I’ll get stuck with Sammy.” Sammy’s the horse she doesn’t like, the one that throws his head and refuses the bit.

Not a word about Amy. She bends forward, lacing her boots. All he sees is the back of her head, the line of her shoulders as she jerks the laces. Had he been so self-absorbed as a teenager? Probably. His entire junior year had been consumed by thoughts of a certain sophomore with a slight overbite and a dimple that appeared when she squinted. It’s a miracle he passed any of his classes.

Eve’s reassured David about Melissa.
All the kids wear those kind of shorts
, she tells him when he reacts with horror at how skimpy his daughter’s clothing is. She shakes her head and smiles when he worries about how low-cut her shirts are.
You just don’t want your little girl to grow up
, she teases. But he doesn’t think that’s entirely it. Last weekend he found a couple of tens missing from his wallet. Melissa had been wide-eyed with innocence when David asked her about it. It had made him wonder if he’d been mistaken. Eve had brushed off his concern.
Really, David
, she’d said.
Melissa would ask if she needed to borrow some money
. Which was true. Melissa has always been a good kid. She’s been a rock.

Tyler, on the other hand, had asked a million questions, drifting from window to window to stare out into the rain. Look how he’d followed the policeman around the night before, as the man searched the house.
Did you look in the park?
he’d wanted to know.
She likes the swings
.

Melissa’s two years older than Tyler. She understands Amy’s disappearance differently and there’s nothing David can do to shield her from it.

“Melissa,” he says to her now. She’s got her hand to her forehead, shielding her eyes. “I don’t want you hanging out at the gas station anymore with Brittany.” The two girls like to do that, walk up to the UDF and peruse the candy shelves, stocking up for a sugar-loaded sleepover. Even after Brittany got her license, this is a favorite pastime. Don’t they realize the world is full of predators? “Not until we know what happened to Amy.” And maybe not even then, though he doesn’t add this part.

“Seriously, Dad? I’m
sixteen
.”

Light-years away from Amy’s eleven years, she means. He knows better.

“Seriously,” he says firmly, and she slumps against her seat, her chin lowered. He has lost some ground with her, and he searches for a way to regain it. “Looking forward to school starting?”

“Can’t wait.” Her sarcasm is heavy. She tugs back her hair and snaps an elastic band around it. Her helmet lies by her feet, her thick padded vest rests on the seat behind them.

Still, he persists. “Taking any interesting classes?” This is Eve’s domain. She’s the one who goes over the curriculum with the children, meets with the guidance counselors to discuss test scores and aptitude tests. Tyler’s scored off the charts in math. Eve had been delighted and wanted David to be delighted, too, but the news only sharpened his own pain. It’s not as if it could go anywhere. How could it?

“Dad.”

“What about Brittany? You guys in any of the same classes?”

“I wish.”

“She’s not taking choir with you this year?”

“
I’m
not taking choir.”

“But you love singing.”

“I suck at singing.”

“No, you don’t.” He’s amazed to hear this. Hasn’t the house always been filled with her lilting voice, practicing all sorts of songs?

“Yes, I do. You’re only saying that because you’re my dad.”

“But it’s true.”

She doesn’t reply, just stares out the window. When she was little, she wanted to be a rock star. He wonders what she wants to be now. “Are you still seeing that boy …” What is his name? “Adrian?” He doesn’t get what Melissa sees in the kid. It’s not as if he isn’t polite, always saying
Hi, Mr. Lattimore
and
Thank you, Mr. Lattimore
. He even makes eye contact. But ever since his arrival on the scene two months before, Melissa’s grown so sullen.

“People don’t see people, Dad. They date.” Her voice is lost, aimed at the window.

“Wow, am I out of touch.” His words mock him. He’s more than out of touch with a younger generation. He’s out of touch with this girl, the magical child who always ran to greet him at the end of the day, who always kissed him on both cheeks before she went to bed. She no longer runs to him. He can’t remember the last time she even
told
him good night.

The barn sits at the end of a narrow gravel road, carved into runnels by last night’s storm. The creek beside the road is higher than he’s ever seen it, swirling over the smooth stones that fill its bed and lapping at the grassy banks. Melissa opens the car door before he’s even put on the parking brake. She trudges away, moving slowly, as if her entire body aches. Maybe Amy’s disappearance has taken a toll after all.

When she was first learning to ride, he was the one who had to saddle the horse for her, heaving the heavy saddle onto the horse’s back and fastening the big straps under the animal’s belly. But now she does this on her own, so he walks in the opposite direction and finds a place at the fence that circles the riding ring. They’re in the indoor ring while the outdoor ring dries out. There are a few other
parents there, two mothers and a father who stands with his back to the ring, his cell phone to his ear. There used to be a dozen of them collected around the fence, but now they’re down to four. Most of the girls in Melissa’s class are driving themselves to their lessons. Next week Melissa will take her driving test and join their ranks, and he won’t be responsible anymore for ferrying her around. For eight years, he’s looked forward to reclaiming his Saturday afternoons, and now that it’s almost upon him, he feels the clanging echo of loss.

Melissa appears, leading a big black horse. So she got Sammy after all. She pointedly doesn’t look at him as she walks into the ring where the other girls are waiting. Their horses jerk their heads, high step away. They don’t like Sammy, either.

Tyler’s told him that Zach’s got a job bagging groceries. David remembers his first job, at a gas station, the feeling of satisfaction of earning that paycheck. Eve’s mentioned that Zach has a girlfriend, too. All the doors flying open in his world that are nailed shut in Tyler’s.

His phone buzzes. Eve, with news? But no, it’s a text from Renée.
Help! I’m being held captive. Send chocolate!

He smiles.
Dress shopping?

We’ve moved on to hats. It’s torture
.

Where’s Jeffery?

Playing golf, the coward
.

Haha. This is good bonding time
. Jeffery’s one of four boys, and the first to get married. Renée’s doing double duty as bride-to-be and future daughter-in-law.

I’m going to elope. I swear it
.

There’s a shout and he glances up at the ring. Melissa sits tall in the saddle, her shoulders straight and her eyes narrowed with focus. She’s so small and that horse is so huge. She doesn’t look the least bit nervous or afraid. His phone buzzes and he looks back down.

How’s your weekend going?

Not so good
, he texts.
A neighbor girl’s missing
.

That’s terrible!!! Do the police know what happened?

Not yet
.

How sad. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you
.

No problem
.

The mother next to him gasps. He looks over just in time to see Melissa slide right off Sammy and land in a tangle on the ground. He grabs the fence, about to vault into the ring, when the mother beside him says, “It’s okay. She’s okay.”

He sees that she’s right. Melissa has rolled to her feet and is brushing the dust from her legs. She has her face turned down. She’s trying not to cry. When she raises her chin, though, her jaw is set, her mouth in a determined line. She looks just like Eve. She grabs the reins from where they’re hanging and yanks Sammy around so she can climb back up into the saddle.