Girl Last Seen Read online

  “Remember what I promised. I’ll take you home any time. Just say the word.”

  We walk up a neat winding path to the massive front door. Sean rings a bell that I don’t hear echoing behind it.

  My heart hammers, a bird throwing itself against the bars of its cage over and over. I count the heartbeats, one-two-three-four-five-six. On the seventh beat, there’s a soft click, and the door opens. A thin stripe of warm light spills out at our feet.

  The face I see in the door is the same face I saw in the news articles. Jacqueline’s gaze darts from Sean to me and back, and she hastily swings the door open wide enough for us to pass.

  Sean subtly, but firmly, frees his hand from my grasp. Self-conscious, I put my hand back in my pocket.

  Jacqueline gestures for us to come in.

  Now I have a chance to get a better look at her. She’s tiny, only half an inch taller than me, and very thin. Only not thin like me, surviving on pain pills and Twizzlers—elegant thin, like a picture from a magazine. She wears dark pants and a cream-colored sweater, and has a small gold pendant at her throat that I recognize, a tiny icon of Santa María. She plays with it nervously, winding the chain around her manicured fingers. I fixate on her hands, with their slender wrists and pale half-moons of nails. Soft hands.

  “Detective Ortiz,” she says in that quiet, near-childlike voice from the voice mail. She shakes his hand. “Thank you so much. I wanted you to know that my husband and I appreciate it.”

  I glance over her shoulder, looking for the husband in question, but the hallway is empty.

  Finally, she turns to me. “Lainey,” she says, hesitant, like she can’t pick which tone of voice to use. She holds out an uncertain hand. I shake it, if only because I need to touch it to know if it’s as soft as it looks.

  She has huge, doe-like brown eyes fringed with full lashes, eyes that peer at me almost pleadingly. She manages to make it seem like she’s looking up at me. Her hair is glossy and dark brown, pulled back in a bun like it was in her newspaper picture, but now I can see how long and thick it is.

  Olivia’s mother, I think, unable to get over the weirdness of it all. We must both be thinking the same thing right now.

  “I wanted to apologize. I know this must all have been very abrupt,” she says gently. She sounds like she means it, to my astonishment. “Thank you for agreeing to meet me.”

  “It’s all right,” I say. My voice sounds hoarse and screechy compared to hers.

  “Will you follow me? We can talk in the living room. Would you like something? A drink?”

  “Ms. Shaw,” Sean starts, and I give him a grateful look. Right now a drink is a bad idea.

  “Please. It’s the least I can do.”

  “We’ll just have water. If that’s all right.”

  I can’t help but stare as we make our way deeper into the house. This is where Olivia grew up. She called this place home. It was all she’d ever known—she was one of the golden people with charmed lives. She couldn’t relate to me any more than I could have related to her.

  Maybe, if only I’d had a chance to hold her—

  I push the thought away for a millionth time. It wouldn’t have made a difference, not for the better anyway, for either of us.

  The front lobby opens into a massive living room furnished in gleaming glass and shiny dark wood. There are huge paintings on the walls, paintings that look like a bunch of drips and splotches to me, but then again, I live in a place with mold on the ceiling. We find Mr. Thomas Shaw in the next room, one with bookcases lining the walls. He gets up from his chair behind a massive desk, closing the lid of a laptop.

  Jacqueline murmurs something disapproving.

  I glimpse my reflection in the glass panel of one of the bookcases and I can’t really blame him for staying away.

  He shakes hands with Sean. “Detective.” Turns to me. “You must be Liane.”

  “Lainey,” Jacqueline corrects softly.

  He holds out his hand. “Welcome to our home, Lainey.”

  I force myself to reach out and take it. He looks like he wants to rub down with hand sanitizer. I almost feel sorry for him.

  My heart is doing that thing again, the trapped-bird thing. I let my hand drop awkwardly by my side, but to my immense relief, Sean catches it. Squeezes it. Any time. Just say the word.

  I grit my teeth. I made it this far, and I’m not leaving.

  The four of us move to the living room. Jacqueline brings two glasses of water and a tumbler for Tom Shaw filled with something dark amber. Nothing for herself, I notice.

  “When I heard your story for the first time,” Jacqueline speaks up, “I was…I don’t have words.” Her soft voice carries in the silence. “I was horrified. I had no idea. We were told the biological mother wanted a closed adoption, no contact with us before or after. I should have known something untoward was going on. I should have…”

  “Jackie,” says Tom Shaw, lowering his glass.

  “I know. I shouldn’t be telling you this. I realize it only dredges up bad memories for you…” She trails off, covering her mouth with her hands. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know how I can ever make it up to you.”

  In my head, I repeat what Sean told me over and over like a mantra. Think of what she’s feeling. She just lost a child. But the words dissolve into a bunch of sounds that mean nothing.

  How could she make it up to me? Well, for one, she could have looked after her daughter—my goddamn daughter. Not let him get her. I know it’s not fair to her, and I can keep from saying it—for Sean’s sake if nothing else—but it sure doesn’t mean I don’t think it.

  “I wanted you to know that you’ll always be welcome in this house. No matter…” Her voice falters. “No matter what happens.”

  I understand what she’s trying to say, and so does Sean. My thoughts go out to the lumps of foil in my left pocket. Or was it my right?

  “And I am immensely, immensely grateful for your sacrifice,” she finishes. I don’t catch on right away and then realize she’s talking about the investigation and my decision to help.

  “I didn’t have a choice,” I say, lowering my head. I let her misinterpret that, and she does.

  “They can’t force you. Can they?”

  Sean intervenes. “It was Laine—Lainey’s own decision,” he says evenly. “I assure you, she was not coerced.”

  “She better not be.” Jacqueline looks flustered, a mother hen bustling over her baby chicks. “If that’s the case, I will not tolerate it, regardless—”

  “It’s necessary for the investigation,” Tom Shaw speaks up. He turns to his wife to speak, but his voice carries like he’s talking to all of us. “And I think, even if the chances are slim, as long as it helps us get closer to Olivia…”

  He gives me a significant look. He’s not like Jacqueline. He makes it very clear who the priority is here: his daughter, and not the weird brown girl who looks like she should be begging for change on the street. “Nonetheless, Lainey, I appreciate it. I know it’s not easy for you.”

  I really wish they’d stop. Is that why they brought me here, to exchange polite, meaningless words? I glance sideways at Sean, who looks as uncomfortable as I’m feeling, and I know he’s thinking the same thing.

  Jacqueline gets up in a rush, the first ungraceful movement I see her make. “Lainey, would you like me to show you around?”

  Sean gives a barely perceptible nod. So I get up, my legs stiff, and follow her softly clacking steps out of the room. On these gleaming floors, my boots look enormous, muddy, and crude.

  “I imagine you’d like to see photos,” Jacqueline says softly as she starts up a huge winding stairway. She glances quizzically over her shoulder, and I can’t bring myself to speak—I just follow her up the carpeted stairs to the second floor. She stops in front of each framed picture lining the wall, and launches into stories and explanations—where this was taken, and when, and here she has a funny look because she’s mad I made her wear sunscreen.


  But barely any of it registers with me. All I can look at is Olivia’s face. Her light-caramel skin, her crazy curly hair—like my own, except it’s a touch lighter than mine, with a warm golden tinge to the corkscrew curls springing in all directions. That didn’t come from my side of the family. And her eyes. She has pale-gray eyes that look even lighter and bigger in her dark face. Mine are a carbon copy of my mother’s, so dark you can barely tell the pupils from the irises.

  I look at her, and with every second I spend studying her face, I notice traits that don’t belong to me. My palms turn clammy, sweat breaks out along my spine, and nausea rises steadily in the back of my throat. Thank God I didn’t drink anything.

  This is the closest I’ve ever come to seeing my kidnapper’s face, I realize.

  Jacqueline misinterprets my distress and makes a big mistake. She reaches out and pats my back, no doubt meaning to be reassuring.

  I jump like someone jabbed me with a live wire. She lets out a small cry and stumbles back, nearly losing her balance.

  “Fuck,” I mutter. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  “No, no.” She struggles to compose herself. She pulls on the hem of her sweater and then resumes playing with her necklace, tugging on the thin chain until I think it might snap. “I shouldn’t have—I should have known better. I didn’t mean to startle you, Lainey.”

  Startle. I let her have her delusion. Anything else might be more painful than she can handle right now.

  “She’s beautiful,” I choke out. It takes all the effort I can muster, and the nausea rises another notch, but relief floods Jacqueline’s face at once. Her eyes fill with tears as she clutches her necklace in her hand.

  “She is. She’s smart too. She’s in advanced math. Her teachers always said she was precocious, even…” She trails off, looks down, and I spy a tear trail down her carefully powdered cheek. She draws a small breath, gathering her courage, and blurts out, “You must have missed her terribly. I’m so sorry; I never meant to do this to you.”

  “I was very young.” It sounds like someone else is talking with my voice. The words are detached from me, emotionless. “I couldn’t take care of her. I was a child myself.”

  Jacqueline throws herself at me and encases me in a hug. It’s so unexpected that I freeze up, stiff and awkward. The smell of expensive perfume fills my nose and her scratchy wool sweater brushes against my cheek.

  “I’m so sorry.” I realize the woman is sobbing. She’s crying into my shoulder, like there’s something I can do. Like she expects me to comfort her or something. She wipes her eyes, smearing her makeup, and pulls away.

  “Will you come with me?” She gestures at the nearest door. “There’s something I would like to show you.”

  Without waiting for my answer, she turns the doorknob, and the door creaks open. It’s dark, but she reaches in and flips a switch.

  The room is done in light pinks and purples with white doll-like furniture and a fake-crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling. Somehow it looks too young for a girl of ten.

  Olivia’s room.

  My legs lock, and my stomach clenches. I wipe my palms on my pants.

  “Come on in,” Jacqueline says softly. “I want you to see where she lived all these years. I think you have the right to know.”

  Every step is a superhuman effort. I have to pause and hold on to the door frame for a moment before going in.

  One look is enough. Olivia lived like a princess. This kind of life I never could have offered her in my wildest dreams—I don’t know why Jacqueline feels the need to prove it to me once again. To rub it in my face? Olivia has a canopy bed with pink gauzy curtains, a dressing table with a huge oval mirror and jewelry boxes lined up neatly. A walk-in closet, a desk with a sleek Apple desktop computer, a paper-flat TV on the wall. A huge rhinestoned frame holds three pictures of a grinning Olivia clutching prizes for various math competitions.

  No pictures with friends, no celebrity posters that young girls like to plaster their walls with. Everything looks expensive as hell, but besides her face in the photos, I see none of her in this room. This could be anybody’s room or a photo from a magazine.

  “I love her, Lainey,” Jacqueline says. The moment the door closed behind us, it’s like someone else took over her vocal cords. Her voice is no longer soft and gentle. It’s steel underneath a layer of silk, as if tiny rusty gears turn in the back of her throat every time she speaks. “You have to believe me; I love her more than anything.”

  Why wouldn’t I believe her? This room, the photos, this whole house is one giant expensive testament to that fact.

  “And I know you love her too. No matter what her father did to you.” She gulps. “I know, or you wouldn’t even be here.”

  I draw a breath to say something but she beats me to it.

  “I think my husband underestimates you, and so does Detective Ortiz. You’re capable. You’re resilient and strong and you have a good heart.”

  She doesn’t know the half of it.

  “I know that if you could help us find her…get closer to her…you would.”

  I’m starting to understand where this is going. Of course. I shouldn’t be surprised.

  Images flicker in front of my eyes, snapshots from a distant past, and I have to squeeze my eyes shut to get rid of them.

  “I already told the police everything I knew.” Many times, over and over again while impassive people in uniforms took notes, while nurses waited in the background with syringes full of sedatives in case I started wigging out.

  “No,” she says with surprising firmness. “Not everything.”

  “Excuse me?”

  She puts her hands on my shoulders and her grip is as steely as her voice. “It’s been ten years. You must have remembered something else.”

  Thirteen. Thirteen years since I was taken. But I don’t correct her. “No.” My voice is a pitiful squeak. No, I can’t help you. No, I don’t know anything. No, please don’t. No no no no.

  “Do you think I haven’t tried my goddamn best? Do you think I’m some kind of monster?”

  “No, I don’t. You’re not the monster here, Lainey. But you might be our only chance of finding him.”

  I want to. I want nothing more with all my heart, but for the life of me, I just don’t see how.

  “Our only chance is to work together.” Jacqueline lowers her voice. “He thinks he’s too smart to leave a trace, but we can prove him wrong. We can make him stumble. Make a mistake—just a small misstep could be enough. And I think you can help.”

  I weigh her words as moments tick away.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “We’ll be going on TV again. I want you to come with us. And I want you to say that you are starting to remember.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  It’s hard to breathe. More than anything I wish Sean were here.

  “Please say yes.” Jacqueline’s gaze is on mine, unblinking.

  “I—I need a minute,” I choke out, and flee into the hallway.

  I stumble past door after door until I find the bathroom, dart in and slide the latch into place. Perched on the edge of the tub, I catch my breath. With numb fingers, I feel around the lining of my jacket until I find one of the foil lumps—it doesn’t matter which one it is right now, I gulp down its entire contents without so much as a glance.

  At first I don’t even hear the knocking on the door.

  “Lainey?” someone calls. “Is everything all right?”

  It’s Tom Shaw. I want to tell him I’m fine. I want to tell him to fuck off and die, but my voice refuses to work.

  “Laine.” This time it’s Sean. “Let me in. Right now.”

  I go to the door and open the latch. He pushes past, ignoring my protests and insults, and slams the door shut. He grabs my shoulders and turns me to face him.

  “Don’t just barge in here,” I mutter through clenched teeth. “I’m fine.”

  His face grows
somber. A tendon pops in his neck as he grits his teeth. “What did she say to you?”

  “She wants me to go on TV with them.”

  His face refocuses, inches away from mine. “TV?”

  “Some interview. They want—”

  “No.” His voice is low but brimming with anger. “Absolutely not.”

  He grabs a towel from the rack, runs it under cold water, and presses it to my puffy eyes, to my forehead. His every move is so achingly tender that I almost start crying. There are so many things I want to say, but I’m terrified of shattering this fragile moment.

  It couldn’t last anyway. A second later, someone pounds on the bathroom door.

  “Everything okay in there?” Tom’s voice. He’s trying to sound concerned, but irritation crackles in every word. I can practically hear him thinking on the other side, Great, now we have to call an ambulance because this little freak can’t keep it together.

  “Yes,” Sean calls out. “She just needs a break.”

  “Do you want anything?” Jacqueline calls out. “Some water, some ice?…”

  I hear Shaw murmur something disapproving, and I’m not sure if he’s displeased with me or with her. As soon as we exit, she starts to fuss over me, her expression betraying guilt. Her smudged mascara gives her raccoon eyes.

  “Can I speak with you?” Sean says. “Both of you. Right now.”

  I sit crouched in the corner of the living room while Sean and Tom Shaw argue in low, angry voices. Jacqueline is pouring coffee into tall mugs, stirring in cream and ungodly amounts of brown sugar. Mutely, she holds out a cup to me, but I shake my head. My hands in my pockets, I play with the empty foil lump I forgot to toss, breaking it down into a thousand pieces that will probably stick to the lining forever.

  “We’re going to go on TV,” Tom Shaw is saying. “I want it to be all three of us this time. If Lainey agrees, of course.”

  The way he says it, it doesn’t sound like I have too many options.

  “This is a terrible idea,” Sean says. “I will not allow it. It severely compromises—”

  “The press has been hounding us for days. Might as well beat them to it.” With a creak, Shaw starts to rise from his chair.