Trevor was in the other room with the police officers who had found him out in the woods, and Kurt was on his cell phone, trying again to get through to Billy. They’d taken Trevor into custody, and Kurt had told Trevor to make sure he asked to have his lawyer present. Kurt told Elsbeth they had to honor that request. Now he just needed to get through to Billy, to get him to come home.
“Billy, turn on the news, for Christ’s sake. We need your help. Please call me back,” he said, then clicked his phone shut. He set his coffee down, rested his elbows on his knees, and put his head in his hands.
Elsbeth stared blankly forward at the institutional green cinder-block walls of the station.
“Where is she?” she had asked Kurt over and over again. She asked Trevor too, the cops, but no one would answer her.
They’d put out an Amber Alert, but she knew it was just a gesture. The cops truly believed that Trevor had done something with her. That he’d hurt her. They’d asked them to provide a photo of Gracy for the media, and she’d given them her first-grade picture. They’d just come back from the school that week and she hadn’t even cut them apart from each other. Hands shaking, she had cut one of the wallet-sized photos from the repeating pattern of Gracy’s face. She kept thinking about the other pictures of Gracy, the ones in her purse right now. The way the light had touched her hair. The soft glow of her bare shoulders. Her tiny hands. She felt the sorrow filling her, like water in a tub. It started at her feet as they came back to life after standing outside in the cold for so long, and then it traveled up her legs, spread across her hips, and finally up into her throat. She thought she might choke on it. That it might suffocate her.
Kurt’s phone rang and he grabbed it quickly out of his pocket. “Billy?” He nodded and nodded, silently, listening to whatever it was that Billy was saying on the other end of the line. “Thank you,” he said. “God, thank you. Call when your flight gets into Manchester.” He looked at Elsbeth, his eyes filled with tears. “He’s at the airport. The next flight out is in an hour. He’ll be here by seven or eight.”
Elsbeth reached for his hand, that familiar hand, the one she’d held since she was just a girl. The one that had cupped her face to kiss her. The one that had stroked her back as she labored with Trevor. The one that had cradled Trevor when she was bone tired, the one that had stroked Gracy’s hair. His palms were rough, callused from years and years of work at the yard. Chapped by too many winters spent working outside. She let it enclose her own hand, watched as the knuckles bent and fingers curled around hers. Studied the veins and tendons. Examined the blood that coursed blue beneath that battered skin. She looked at him, but he wouldn’t look at her. Wouldn’t meet her glance.
“Kurt,” she said, his name like a marble lodged in her throat.
He looked at her then, startled, as if he didn’t recognize her at all.
“Baby?” she asked.
But then his hand let go, and her own hand felt exposed. Alone on her lap. She felt the liquid sorrow rising up her throat, filling her mouth and cheeks and eyes and head. She was drowning, and no one was there to save her.
K
urt didn’t want to leave the station, but the rental agency at the airport was out of four-wheel drive vehicles, and the roads were bad. It was just a forty-five-minute drive to the airport. He could be back with Billy by eight thirty, even if they had to go slow.
He hadn’t seen Billy since he left. Not once in all these years. He wasn’t sure if he’d even be able to recognize him anymore; he was just a kid when he took off. Now Billy was a grown man. A thirty-year-old man. Kurt was trembling as he pulled up to the curb next to where Billy had said he’d be waiting.
But there he was, as though he hadn’t aged a day. A thinner, more gentle version of Kurt himself. The same blond hair, wide shoulders, blue eyes. A better haircut, though, a nicer coat, not so many years in the lines of his face. He shielded his eyes from the glare of Kurt’s headlights and smiled when he recognized him inside the cab.
Billy threw his suitcase into the bed of the truck and opened the passenger door. He climbed into the cab and blew into his hands. “Wow, it is fucking cold out there.”
“Hey,” Kurt said, feeling a thousand different things at once, some of them good, but most of them awful.
“Hey,” Billy said and put one of his gloved hands on Kurt’s shoulder. “I’m here, buddy. Everything’s going to be okay.”
They drove quietly back to Two Rivers, Kurt peering intently at the road, grateful for his need to focus on the icy pavement as an excuse for their silence.
Billy asked only basic questions, and Kurt answered them the best he could.
When did you last see Trevor? Gracy? Do you know anyone who would want to harm Gracy? Did Trevor admit to anything? Has he been acting strangely lately? Did you make sure to demand your lawyer be present?
He answered the questions, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell Billy about what he’d seen in the caboose. He was afraid that if he did, then Billy would have the only answer he needed.
As they pulled into the dirt parking lot at the police station, Billy took a deep breath and asked the one question Kurt couldn’t answer: “Do you think Trevor did what they say he did?”
Kurt sighed and looked into Billy’s face, his own face, a stranger’s face, his brother’s face. “I don’t know a goddamn thing anymore.”
C
rystal was trying not to drive too fast; she knew that if she wasn’t careful, she could get them in an accident, and that was the last thing she needed. The car still smelled like greasy fries and burgers. Gracy had woken up and devoured her cheeseburger and fries and chocolate milk and was playing with the Strawberry Shortcake doll that had come inside the Happy Meal. “When are we going home?” she asked.
“Right now,” Crystal had said, forcing the words past the frozen block of ice in her throat.
“Good. Because it’s past my bedtime,” she said, and this made Crystal smile.
She still hadn’t figured out what to do about Gracy. She knew she couldn’t just drop her off at her house. With everything that was happening, she was pretty sure no one would be there. She also couldn’t take her to her own house. She thought about taking her to the police station, saying that she’d found her somewhere, but she was also fairly certain that Gracy would blow that story. She needed to get to Angie, but she wasn’t even sure where Angie was. She looked at her dead phone. Angie might be in Burlington or Hanover. She could be in Boston for all Crystal knew.
No fatalities.
She clung to the newscaster’s words. No one had died in the blast. She was still alive.
She pulled off the interstate at the Two Rivers exit, and she realized what she needed to do. The clock at the bank across from the Walgreens said 11:04
P.M.
The Walgreens was the only place besides the 76 station in town that was open all night. It was Monday. Howard would be there until midnight. She pulled into the parking lot.
“Why are we at the Walgreens?” Gracy asked sleepily in the backseat.
“Your mommy will come get you here, okay? And my friend, Howard, is going to take care of you, okay?”
Gracy shrugged. “Can I get a Butterfinger?”
“You can get anything you want.”
Gracy unbuckled her seat belt, and Crystal picked her up without needing to be reminded and carried her into the store. The lights were so bright, they almost burned her eyes. Gracy blinked against the glare as well. They were like newborns just coming into the bright world.
She set Gracy down and took her hand, leading her to the photo department, where she searched through the envelopes looking for one of her mother’s packets of photos. Luckily, the ones that Crystal hadn’t stolen were still there, with Mrs. Kennedy’s cell number right on the front. She scratched the number down on a piece of tape she pulled from the roll on the register.
“Howard?” she said.
Howard, like a dog, came wagging his tail over to her.
“I need you to keep an eye on my friend, Gracy. Her mother will be here to pick her up soon. And if anybody asks, you didn’t see who dropped her off. Do you understand?”
Howard looked terrified, but he blinked hard and nodded. “Of course,” he said. If she asked him to rob a goddamned bank, he probably would.
“Miss Grace,” she said, kneeling down next to Gracy, who had already torn into a Butterfinger, “your mommy will be here soon, okay?”
She thought about telling her not to say anything about who had taken her, but she knew there was no way that would work. She could imagine it already, “That girl at Walgreens picked me up at school and took me for a long, long drive. We went to McDonald’s too.”
She had bigger things to worry about now, though. She’d returned Gracy. Hopefully her mother would just be so grateful to have her back, she wouldn’t say anything. Do anything. She thought then about what it meant to be sending her home. With a brother who set a bomb off at his school. Her only hope was that she’d get removed from the house after this, placed with a foster family. Adopted even, by someone who really could take care of her.
Crystal’s mind was reeling as she left Grace there and got back into her car. She dug through the suitcase in the back of the station wagon and found the phone charger. She got in the driver’s side and plugged it in. Her hands were trembling as she dialed the number she’d scratched on the slip of paper.
“Mrs. Kennedy. I just wanted to let you know your daughter is here at the Walgreens. She’s fine. She’s waiting for you.”
She clicked the phone shut, and then dialed her voice mail, listened to her mother’s thousand tearful pleas for her to please come home.
K
urt and Billy had sent Elsbeth home. “In case Gracy comes back,” they said. “You’ll want to be there if she comes home, right?” Though Kurt knew Gracy wouldn’t just walk through the front door. Though he had seen the blood himself, like bright cherry Kool-Aid on the snow.
Billy disappeared inside the interrogation room with Trevor, and Kurt paced. His legs wouldn’t let him sit, not even for a moment. He walked back and forth, back and forth until the woman at the front desk who had initially seemed kind started to glare at him.
At about ten o’clock, Billy came out of the room, followed by Trevor.
“What’s going on?” Kurt asked.
“He’s going home. For tonight anyway. He’s got an alibi that’s been corroborated by his art teacher.”
“What?”
“He was with his art teacher when the explosion went off. They’re still trying to determine if the bombs were detonated remotely or not. But they can’t hold him here until they come up with some concrete evidence that he’s the one who planted the explosives. They’ve got some footage of a kid with a hockey mask and a duffel bag entering the school over the Thanksgiving break, so they’re going to do another search of the house. But right now, they’ve got nothing but a whole bunch of suspicions. And suspicions aren’t enough to keep a minor in custody. Not with me as his lawyer anyway.”
“What about Gracy?” Kurt asked.
“God, Kurt, I don’t know. But at least the lab results for the blood found in the woods matches it to him. He and Gracy are different blood types. He cut his hand. There’s nothing but circumstantial evidence linking Trevor to her disappearance.”
Kurt felt his entire body go limp, as if someone shut off the supply of electricity that had been coursing through his body for months now. He nearly collapsed. Maybe Trevor hadn’t done this. Maybe it was all some terrible mistake. But the simple, horrific fact remained that Gracy was gone. His baby girl.
Billy reached for Kurt’s arm, as if to keep him from falling. “They want him back here in the morning for more questioning. If you can just drop me at that motel we drove by, we can meet back here tomorrow.”
“You can stay with us,” Kurt said.
“That’s okay,” Billy said, shaking his head. “I plan to work through the night. And as crazy as it sounds, you need to try to go home and get some sleep. They’ve got people out looking for Gracy, there’s an Amber Alert in place. They’re going to find her, and we’re going to clear up all of this stuff with Trevor. I promise.”
Kurt’s eyes stung, his stomach was empty, but he couldn’t even think of eating. He tried to imagine Elsbeth at home, wondered what on earth she would be doing all alone in the house.
Trevor stood behind Billy, shoulders slumped, head hung to his chest.
“Come on, then,” he said, and they all went outside to the truck.
W
hen Elsbeth’s cell phone rang, she didn’t recognize the number and assumed it was Kurt calling from the police station. He’d been on his phone so much, it was probably dead. The girl’s voice on the other end of the line was soft. Tentative. She couldn’t hear her at first, and thought maybe it was just a wrong number.
“Your daughter is here at the Walgreens,” she said.
“What?”
“She’s fine. She’s waiting for you.”
“Who is this?” she asked, feeling her heart pounding in her temples and shoulders and chest.
The girl hung up without answering, and Elsbeth was out the door without even bothering to grab her coat or purse.
As she raced into town, she repeated the words again and again in her head. The Walgreens? Why on earth would she be at the Walgreens? And then the realization struck her in the chest like a bullet.
That girl
. The one with the baby. Or without the baby. That teenaged girl who had confronted her, the only other person in the world who knew her secret. She thought of all the things she had stolen: the little trinkets that had accumulated, the box of stolen treasures like some terrible shrine. The evidence. The proof that she was nothing but a thief. She thought then about the photos that had appeared in the mailbox. That girl had stolen them, and then she’d stolen her daughter. In the parking lot that day, she had threatened to call the police, to have her arrested for shoplifting, but then instead she’d taken from her the only thing in the world she really cared about. Was this some kind of twisted lesson? And who was she to cast her moral judgment on Elsbeth? She was no different than her, just another girl who got pregnant at seventeen. Whose girlhood was stolen. They were the
same
. God, they were exactly the same.
She didn’t bother turning off the engine when she got to the Walgreens. She simply threw the car door open and ran down the slippery walkway to the doors. They opened and she rushed into the store screaming, “Gracy? Gracy?”
Gracy was sitting on the counter at the front of the store, playing with some sort of little doll, legs dangling off the edge.
“Baby!” she said rushing to her and scooping her up in her arms.
The boy at the register said, “You her mom?”
“Of course,” she said.
“She’s safe. It’s okay. I hope you don’t mind I gave her a candy bar.”
“Hi, Mumma,” Grace said, and Elsbeth buried her face in her daughter’s hair. Elsbeth pulled back and studied her for any evidence that she had been harmed.
“Did she hurt you?” she whispered into her hair.
“No,” Gracy shook her head. She shrugged and smiled. “She was nice. She took me to McDonald’s.”
Elsbeth lifted her off the counter.
“Maybe you should give me some ID or something?” the kid asked. “I probably shouldn’t just let her go with anybody.”
Elsbeth shook her head in disbelief and then instinctively reached to her hip where her purse usually hung. “I don’t have my purse,” she said. “Jesus Christ. This is my kid. Look at her. Isn’t that ID enough?”
“Yeah, I guess,” the kid said. “I actually think I’ve seen you all in here together before. It’s cool.”
Gracy clung to Elsbeth’s neck as they made their way back to the car.
“I missed you, Gracy Bear,” she said, tears coming down now, hot and fast. It was snowing again, and Gracy’s hair was speckled with snowflakes.
“I missed you too, Mumma.”
K
urt did not speak to Trevor after they dropped Billy off at the motel. Trevor stared out the window, and he focused on the road. He was afraid to ask him the simplest question. He was afraid to know the answer.
How had this happened?
He racked his brain. He thought about Pop, that garbage heap of a house. How he’d been so consumed with saving Pop that he couldn’t save his own son. His own marriage. Bile rose in his throat as he thought about the condoms he’d found, about Elsbeth cheating. His own pride had kept him from noticing that his son was clearly changing, transforming into someone capable of the unthinkable. Kurt hadn’t managed to protect him from those kids, and so he’d taken matters into his own hands. Kurt hadn’t even managed to protect his own daughter. He was a failure. A complete failure.
All he wanted was to go to Elsbeth, to comfort her. To be comforted by her. He knew if he couldn’t do this, if she wouldn’t do this, he was as good as dead. But when they got to the house, Elsbeth’s car wasn’t there, and a new panic set in.
“Go to your room,” he said to Trevor, and he wordlessly obeyed, disappearing silently down the hallway.
The lights were on in the kitchen. There was even a hot pot of coffee still on. Elsbeth’s coat was slung over the back of one of the kitchen chairs, and her purse was on the table. What the fuck? Where the hell was she? Did she run off with that asshole? Maybe
he
was the one who had Gracy. Maybe that had been the plan all along. Make it look like she’d been kidnapped, and then swoop in and steal his wife. Had this dick decided to steal not only his wife, but his entire life?
He took her purse and pulled it opened, the magnetic snap popping. He tipped it upside down and dumped its contents onto the table. A compact, a hairbrush. He rifled through her wallet, looking at the receipts, looking for anything. Coins spilled on the table and rolled onto the floor. A ratty paperback, a pack of gum, a flier for an after-school art program. A bundle of photo envelopes from Walgreens. He tore the first envelope open and spilled the pictures on the table. Trevor’s pictures. The junkyard, Pop and his model airplanes. The woods. The green, green canopy that in all these years had not changed. His heart panged. He flipped through the pictures, laying them down on the table like a dealer. Hoping that the bigger picture they made might show him something.
And then there was Gracy. Gracy in bed. Gracy asleep. Gracy standing half-naked in the woods, leaning against a tree, one leg up, her lips parted. He felt his stomach turn. Gracy sleeping. Gracy in the water. Gracy’s bare legs, her nipple exposed. He squeezed his eyes shut and the images of Gracy blurred with those strange sepia pictures of other little girls. Gracy’s tights, strung up like a prize. And the blood, the blood on the mattress that the cops hadn’t seen. They hadn’t tested that blood to make sure it didn’t belong to his little girl.
It was like someone had flicked the breaker on again, and the next thing he knew his entire body was electrified as he tore down the hallway to his bedroom, where he rifled through his drawer looking for the ammunition. In the living room, he unlocked the gun cabinet, and then he went to Trevor’s room and threw open the door.
“Get up!” he said.
Trevor was lying face-down on his bed. He turned his head to face him. His pale cheeks were streaked with tears, red tracks, like blood in newly fallen snow.
“I said get the fuck up.”
He shoved him down the hallway to the mudroom. He motioned for him to put the boots on, and Trevor obeyed, sobbing as he tied his laces.
And then Kurt said, “Outside. Now.”
I
f Trevor had his camera, this is the way the world would look through his viewfinder: crystalline and blue. As the clouds parted, even as the snow kept falling, the hushed light of the moon was gentle. The whole world was numb and quiet and cold. Everything sparkled. It was beautiful; it was terrible.
He could hear his father’s labored breath behind him as they marched from the house out past the shed to the field behind the house. The snow was getting deeper and deeper; Trevor felt himself sinking into the cold. Like quicksand, sucking him in.
He turned to look at his father. This photo of his father would be nothing but shadows and wild eyes. He was terrified. They were both terrified.
“Daddy,” he said, the words like icy slivers in his mouth.
They kept moving forward until they were at the top of the hill. From up there you could see the entire valley below them. Only a few lights twinkled now. It made him think of the little Christmas village that his mother set out on the mantel every Christmas. Just a tiny little make-believe place. If he had his camera, this picture would be of a snow globe, a father and son trapped inside.