Lost (38 page)

“So I’m just supposed to sit back and do nothing?”

“That’s exactly what you’re supposed to do.”

“I don’t think I can do that.”

“You have no choice here, Mrs. Carver.”

Cindy clenched her fists in her lap, swallowed another scream. Elvis immediately poked his wet nose into the palm of her hand, demanding to be stroked. Cindy
absently obliged, replaying Detective Gill’s words in her mind—
You have no choice here
—and wondering how many major events in her life had been decided without her approval. There was no such thing as choice, she was thinking. It was an illusion, a comforting yet basically specious concept that human beings had developed in order to fool themselves into believing they had some control over their lives.

Control—another illusion.

“Mrs. Carver,” Detective Gill was saying. “Did you understand what I just said?”

“I understand, Detective Gill. I’m not an idiot.”

“Then please stop acting like one,” he said, a sudden sharpness cutting through his soft Jamaican lilt. “You could end up sabotaging this whole investigation,” he continued, softening. “Or worse. You could get hurt. And what good would that do anyone?”

“You’re right.” Cindy looked around the kitchen, thinking that if she didn’t get off this phone, get out of this house, she would go insane. “I’m sorry, Detective. It won’t happen again.”

“We’ll keep in touch.”

“Thank you.” Cindy hung up the phone and jumped to her feet, Elvis leaping to attention beside her. “We have to get out of here,” Cindy told the dog, who promptly dragged his leash to the front door, understanding her intent, if not her words.

Seconds later, the two were running down the street toward Avenue Road.

T
HEY RAN DOWN
the steep slope between Edmund and Cottingham. Even after nine o’clock at night, Avenue
Road was still busy. Three lanes of traffic moved steadily in each direction, and pedestrians ambled along both sides of the street—joggers, people walking their dogs, couples out for an evening stroll. Such a nice night after all. Still warm. Summer hanging on, more stubborn than usual.

A few more months and this hill would be as treacherous as a mountain of ice. Cindy remembered winters when this stretch of road became almost unnavigable, when cars on the ascent stalled and faltered, their wheels spinning aimlessly before succumbing to the pull of gravity and sliding back down the hill, colliding with other automobiles powerless to get out of the way, causing traffic tie-ups all the way to Queen’s Park.

Cindy passed an elderly couple strolling hand in hand, the wife using the handrail that ran along the side of the street to help her manage the incline, then scooted past a jogger in bright orange shorts and the latest in running shoes. What was she doing? she asked herself. She wasn’t a jogger, let alone a long-distance runner, yet here she was running much too fast down a steep hill, wearing jeans that were way too tight and sandals that offered no support at all, a rambunctious and unpredictable terrier at her feet. She’d be stiff as a board in the morning, she thought, and laughed out loud, the sound scraping at the darkness, like a pick through ice. Oh well. At least that would keep her from barging into people’s homes and offices, from interfering with the police investigation. Hah, she thought, and laughed again.

At the bottom of the hill, she turned right, running along Cottingham, glancing at the semidetached brown-stones that lined both sides of the wide street, wondering
what mayhem was being unleashed behind thin venetian blinds and antique lace curtains. She slowed her pace as she drew near two young women who were talking beside a low, white picket fence. Both were blond. Neither was Julia.

“What’s your favorite film so far?” one was asking the other.

“It’s between
The Magdelene Sisters
and L
‘Homme du Train
. They were awesome.”

“Am I wrong, but is the quality of films better this year?”

Cindy resumed her former pace, passing the two young women, then turning left, then left again, and running briskly down Rathnelly, a quirky little avenue whose even quirkier inhabitants had once declared their street a republic. She turned left again, Elvis beside her, somehow knowing not to stop, to keep running, to keep turning left, then right, then left again, then right, watching one familiar street blur into another. Cindy kept on going, hoping to disappear, to lose herself in the welcoming darkness.

She ran beside the railway tracks along Dupont, past the tiny Tarragon Theater on Bridgeman, where she’d once had a subscription, past majestic old Casa Loma, where Meg had held her wedding reception, then across the bridge at Spadina, back up to St. Clair, and finally back down Poplar Plains to Balmoral.

She reached the corner in time to see Ryan and Faith Sellick pulling into their driveway, climbing out of their car, and carrying their infant son up the front steps, before disappearing inside their home.

Home, she thought, coming to an abrupt halt.

All her running, and where had it gotten her? Back where she started.

She couldn’t get lost if she tried.

A
T JUST AFTER
two o’clock in the morning, Cindy’s phone rang.

“Is this Cindy Carver?” a voice asked, jolting her awake.

“Who is this?”

“It’s Officer Medavoy from Fifty-third Division. We have your daughter, Mrs. Carver,” the officer began.

He was still speaking as Cindy threw down the phone and raced for the door.

T
HE
Fifty-third Division of the Metropolitan Police Department is a vine-covered, redbrick building with a dramatic glass atrium over its entranceway, located on the southwest corner of Eglinton and Duplex, across from the Eglinton subway station. Cindy pulled her car into the narrow lot at the rear of the building, parking it between two black-and-white police cars, and running along Duplex to the front of the three-story structure. Her legs were cramping as she reached the glass double doors, and she stopped to rub behind one knee, taking several deep breaths in an effort to calm herself down.

They’d found Julia. She was alive.

“I’m Cindy Carver,” she announced as she burst through the front door and threw herself at the long counter that cut across the middle of the large, high-ceilinged room. “Where’s my daughter?”

A dark-haired woman with a wide forehead and a long, pinched nose was sitting at one of four desks behind the counter. She immediately jumped to her feet, glancing anxiously over one shoulder, before returning wary eyes to Cindy. “I’m sorry?” she began,
absently smoothing the creases of her police uniform.

“My daughter, Julia Carver. Someone called me.… Officer Medavak.…”

“Medavoy,” the policewoman corrected.

“Where is he?”

“I’ll see if I can find him.”

Cindy nodded, her eyes quickly scanning the bulletin board to her left, crowded with pictures of missing children, as the policewoman shuffled slowly toward a door at the back of the room. Cindy had to bite down on her tongue to keep from yelling, Move!

The officer suddenly stopped, turned back to Cindy. “I’m sorry. Your name again?”

“Cindy Carver.” What’s the matter with her? Cindy thought. Doesn’t she know who I am? Doesn’t she read the papers? Hasn’t she seen Julia’s photograph plastered across the front pages for weeks now? Although there’d been no pictures of her for several days, not since the police arrested Sally Hanson’s boyfriend for her murder and eliminated the likelihood of a serial killer on the loose. Was it possible Julia had already been forgotten? That Tom had been right—out of sight, out of mind?

“Tom,” she thought, saying his name out loud. Was he here? Had anyone thought to phone him?

Certainly she hadn’t, she realized guiltily, although she hadn’t been thinking too clearly when the police officer called. It had been all she could do to remember to put on some clothes before tearing out the door. She looked down at her black V-neck sweatshirt, hoped it was clean, that she didn’t smell. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d done any laundry. Not since her sister left, she thought, thinking she should call Leigh, tell her the
good news. And her mother. She should phone her. And Tom. Somebody should phone Tom.

She reached for the cell phone in her purse, felt her fist close around it, then released it, brought her hand back to her side. She wanted some time alone with Julia first, time before Tom arrived. It was horribly selfish of her, Cindy knew, but she also knew that once Tom swept onto the scene, she might as well disappear. There was no question where Julia’s first allegiance lay. Cindy wanted—needed—at least a few minutes alone with her daughter before Tom effortlessly assumed control. She needed those precious minutes alone with Julia to touch her, hold her, tell her how much she loved her. Time to stake her claim.

Unless it was already too late.

Unless Tom was already here. Unless they’d called him first—of course they’d called him first—and he’d arrived before her. A five-minute drive, for heaven’s sake, especially at two in the morning with only a few cars on the road, and it had taken her almost three times that long to get here. Imagine taking the wrong turn, heading west on Chaplin when she knew to go east, getting stuck behind some joker doing five miles an hour. Where was the idiot going anyway? Why wasn’t he home in bed? What was he doing out at two in the morning, this middle-aged man with thinning hair and watery eyes, who scowled when she passed him on the inside lane? And then forgetting what side street was quickest, getting lost
now
, now when her daughter had finally been found.

Tom had undoubtedly proceeded with appropriate calm, had announced himself with the proper politeness
to the officer behind the desk, who, of course, had been totally charmed, and who’d immediately ushered him into the backroom without unnecessary prompting. He’d probably asked for a few minutes alone with his daughter, and that’s what was taking so long now.

Or maybe he’d already taken Julia home with him, and that was why it was taking forever to find Officer Madavak or Medicare or whatever his name was. Why wasn’t he here? And where were Detectives Bartolli and Gill? Why hadn’t they been the ones to phone her with the good news?

Unless the news wasn’t good, Cindy realized, her stomach suddenly doing flip-flops, her already sore knees buckling. Unless there was something they weren’t telling her.

The front door opened and Cindy spun toward the sound. A uniformed policeman—surprisingly short, beefy, standard-issue bull neck, crossed the room, smiled, and said hello.

“Officer Medavoy?” Cindy asked hopefully.

“No, sorry. Are you looking for him?”

“I’m Cindy Carver. Officer Medavoy called my house to say you have my daughter.” Had he? Cindy wondered. Or had it been just another crank call? Why hadn’t she thought of that possibility before? Maybe there was no Officer Medavoy.

“Let me see if I can find him for you,” the policeman was saying, his voice cheerily noncommital, his demeanor friendly and nonjudgmental, as if she looked like a normal human being, and not like some escapee from the Clarke Institute, as if her skin wasn’t ghostly white and her eyes weren’t swollen with worry and
fatigue, as if her hair wasn’t sticking out in a variety of weird angles, as if she didn’t smell fetid and stale, her breath heavy with sleep, as if talking to half-crazed mothers at two o’clock in the morning was something he did every day.

And maybe he did, Cindy thought, understanding there was a whole other world that operated between the hours of midnight and 7
A.M.
, an inverse world where people lived and worked and carried on relatively normal lives. Except what was normal? Cindy wondered, watching the officer disappear into the station’s inner sanctum.

Almost immediately, the policewoman reentered the main room from another door. “Officer Medavoy will be with you in a moment,” she told Cindy, before returning to her desk and pretending to busy herself with paperwork.

“Can I go in? Can I see my daughter?” It was taking all of Cindy’s self-control to keep from leaping over the counter.

“Officer Medavoy would like to talk to you first.”

“Why? Is something wrong? Is my daughter all right?”

“She’s been throwing up.”

“Throwing up?”

“They’re getting her cleaned up now.”

“I can do that. Please—just let me see her.”

“I’m sorry. You’ll have to wait for Officer Medavoy,” the policewoman cautioned as the other officer reappeared.

“Officer Medavoy will be right with you,” he said, stooping to search for something behind the counter.

Cindy watched in growing amazement as the two
officers went about their business. What’s the matter with everybody? she wondered again. Why are they so calm, so blasé, so indifferent? Why won’t they let me see my baby?

Something isn’t right here, she decided. Why such a lack of concern, especially if Julia was sick and throwing up? Didn’t they realize who she was? Where were Detectives Bartolli and Gill? Why weren’t they here?

“Are Detectives Bartolli and Gill here?” Cindy asked, louder than she’d intended.

The two officers exchanged glances, although neither head turned. “I don’t believe so,” the woman officer responded. “No.”

“Why not? Why hasn’t anybody called them? What’s going on here?”

Both officers approached cautiously. “Mrs. Carver, are you all right?”

“No, of course I’m not all right. I want to see my daughter.”

“You have to calm down.”

“Calm down? You expect me to calm down? What’s the matter with you people?” Had she dreamed the phone call after all? Was this whole episode nothing but a cruel hoax?

Another door opened at the back of the room, and a tall, heavyset man stepped inside. He was about forty, with brown hair, a square jaw, and a nose that had been broken several times. “Mrs. Carver?”

“Where’s my daughter?”

“I’m Officer Medavoy,” the man answered, coming around the counter, extending his hand.

Cindy shook his hand because it was obviously expected.
What she really wanted to do was swat it aside and push the imposing figure out of her way. Why all the formalities? Why couldn’t they just take her to Julia? Why the need to talk to her first? What grim reality were they preparing her for? “Please, Officer Medavoy. I need to see my daughter.”