Authors: Hank Phillippi Ryan
There. That was it, it was out, and whatever. She felt lighter.
Mom crossed the room and wrapped Tenley up in her arms, so tight Tenley could feel the little round buttons on her blouse, and smell that white soap she used, and her grapefruit perfume, and her mom’s metal watchband pressing into her back.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” she whispered.
“Shh,” her mom’s voice went into her hair.
* * *
Catherine was never going to let her daughter go. She would never let her out of her sight again. Never let her talk to anyone else, ever again. Never let her come back to City Hall. All her power, all her control. When real life interfered, it proved how little it mattered.
Still. It was all politics. Some people were in power, others weren’t. Some people took the power and tried to use it to control the weaker ones.
Catherine refused to be a weak one. She and her daughter would be strong. They had no choice.
If the mayor’s secret taping came out, he’d have to take his political lumps. Brileen—arms crossed, now sitting on the windowsill—seemed to have the answers.
“Did ‘Hugh’ give these so-called pictures of Tenley to my husband?”
She heard her own words muffled by her daughter’s hair, the dark strands she’d seen every day for the last eighteen years. Funny how she had stopped looking at her, except to criticize, or demand, or question. As Tenley and Lanna grew older, they’d separated, come into their own. Apparently, each of them kept secrets. Lanna’s had died with her, Catherine had always believed. Now, maybe, that wasn’t completely true.
“Brileen? Did he?” She settled Tenley into her own desk chair, standing behind her, both hands on her daughter’s shoulders as if to keep her from floating away.
Brileen tilted her head back, gazed at the ceiling’s swirls of white stucco. “I don’t know,” she said. “That’s why I wanted Tenley out of her house, especially after she said you were gone. I’m sorry, Tenley, but what if Hugh had shown up? Found you alone, and threatened
you
? He called me,
so
angry. I felt I like had to get you away. I—couldn’t protect Lanna. I had to at least
try
to protect you.”
Catherine blinked at Brileen, imagining. Her Tenley, alone with a blackmailer. What might he have demanded she do to hand over that video?
What video?
There was a way to find out. A fast way. A terrible way, but a way.
She clicked open her purse. Pulled out her wallet. Slipped a finger under the very last credit card slot and pulled out a thin white business card. That detective, Jake Brogan, had printed his cell phone number on the back of it along with the number for Sergeant Kiyoko Naka in the Missing Persons department. She stared at the black felt-tip numbers that meant the end of her career.
She could hear the silence of the room, thick with expectation. She might never work here again. Or anywhere. Would that matter?
“Mom?” Her daughter’s voice reached her. Her beautiful daughter, whose life had been trampled by circumstance and politics. Could politics have motivated these attacks on her family? “What are you doing?”
Her intercom buzzed. “Catherine? I’m back at my desk.”
Siobhan Hult. Back from her made-up mission to Ward Dahlstrom, a man probably counting his blessings he hadn’t been able to oust her from the chief of staff job.
Heavy lies the head,
Catherine thought. And now he’ll be happy it’s my head that’s about to roll. She had to move fast.
“Thank you, Siobhan.” Catherine kept her voice chipper, professional.
She pulled out her cell.
“Who are you calling?” Tenley asked.
“Everything is going to be all right,” Catherine said for the second time that morning.
Again, she hoped it was true.
It was almost funny.
“See her?” Jane pointed at the monitor. For reassurance, she snaked her arm through Jake’s, her bare skin on his leather jacket. No one could see them, and this was a moment of swirling relief.
Gracie was safe. Not kidnapped. Not missing. Not dead. Jane had found her.
“That’s in the—gift shop?” Jake leaned forward toward the screen.
Jane didn’t let go, leaning toward the revealing video along with him. “Yup. Poor little thing. Let’s go get her.”
Jake reached for his radio, extricating her with a final pat. “I’ll call off the search. Good work, honey. And I think there’s a reward. A personal one.”
“Can’t wait.” She tried not to cry. This was a good thing.
Jane had seen a flicker on the screen first. A movement in row one, monitor three, according to the schematic. When she had looked again, the shot had changed. She’d kept her eye on the screen, listening to Jake at the same time.
“All clear on the BOLO,” he said. “Return to base.”
When the shot flipped again, Jane saw that unmistakable curly hair. The top of a little face. And then the yellow ruffles, looking gray in the black-and-white. The small figure rose, tentatively, from behind a metal-and-glass display case in the gift shop. Her face looked a little smudged. All the transmissions were fuzzy, but Jane got the picture. Gracie Wilhoite, row one, monitor three, was in the hotel. In the gift shop, where she’d apparently hidden behind the candy counter. And she looked fine.
“I’ll go get her right now,” Jane said. “Bring her to—
oh.
No.”
“What?” Jake said.
Jane envisioned that scene. “I can’t go. She’s terrified of me. I’m the reason she ran away. That moron Wilhoite apparently never told her—”
“Ah, I get it. You’re the child molester. Awesome.” Jake shook his head, then turned a switch on his radio again. “Okay, then. At least I can update the troops that the bad guy is in custody. How far away are your sister and Daniel?”
“In traffic,” Jane said. “Who knows?”
On the bank of monitors, the screen shots kept changing. Every third time, she calculated, the Gracie view came up.
“We can’t leave her there,” Jane said. “You have to go. She’ll be so frightened. Who knows what she heard or what she saw. The lobby is empty. I can at least keep an eye on her now, thanks to Hewlitt Security.”
“What?” Jake said.
“I mean I wonder what she was thinking, all that time. It’s been, what, half an hour? Poor child, did some adults just leave her behind? Ran away from the shooter, ignored the little girl? Anyway, go. You have to go get her. Look. There she is.”
The third cycle of video came around again. Gracie now appeared in front of the counter, a dark smear of something down her front. She stood, fussing with the ruffles on her dress, as if deciding what to do. She pointed one foot out in front of her, in her white shoe. Then switched to the other foot. Wearing just a white sock. Then the shoe. Then she turned back toward the counter, and—the shot changed again.
“You. Have. To go.” Jane didn’t take her eyes off the screen. No way were they going to lose Gracie now. “What do you mean,
what
? You’re a police officer, you’re not stranger danger. She’s got to know about police, and badges, right? Or should you call someone in uniform? A woman, maybe?”
“Jane,” Jake said. “The security. You said the name of the security company.”
“So what?” Jane said. “Hewlitt. It’s on the binder. Now go get Gracie.”
* * *
“Gracie? I’m Jake. I’m a police officer, even though I have on regular clothes.”
He stood in the doorway of the hotel gift shop, looking at the candy counter, where he knew the girl was once again hiding. Jane had kept him updated on Gracie’s whereabouts over their cell phones. As soon as he’d approached the shop’s open door, the child had scuttled behind her protective chrome and glass. He flipped open his wallet, held it up facing the counter.
Hewlitt Security,
he thought. But first, Gracie. “Here’s my badge, see? You recognize a police badge?”
No reply.
“Gracie?” Jake started again. “I know what happened. I know you must be scared. A woman came up to you, right? Well, we’ve talked to her, and everything is just fine. It’s all a misunderstanding. Her name is Jane, and she’s a good person. A friend of mine. And she really truly is a friend of your—” Jake paused. Who was the good guy here? Lewis? Robyn? “Family,” he said.
Nothing.
“Jane came to take you home.” This was turning into a disaster. He couldn’t go back and pull the girl out from behind her safety shield of candy and souvenirs. She’d freak. There was no reason to put her through that. Surely he could sweet-talk a nine-year-old out of hiding.
“Gracie? Listen, okay? I know you’re going to be a flower girl in a wedding, in Illinois. This weekend. Your dad, Daniel, is the groom, and he’s marrying Melissa, right? And I think you lost your shoe in the lobby. I know exactly where it is. You could be like Cinderella.”
A shift in the silence. Jake could almost feel the little girl considering.
“My daddy told me not to talk to strangers.” Her determined voice piped up from behind the cash register.
“Very good advice.” Progress. Jake continued to display his badge, took a step forward. “Good for you. But I’m a police officer, and that’s different.”
“And my parents always told me to yell and run and hide and if I was ever scared by a stranger,” Gracie went on. “So I did.”
“Very good,” Jake said. “And they’re right.”
She’d appear any minute now. He hoped. Thank God he wasn’t outstubborned by a kid. Jake’s phone was buzzing in his pocket, but he’d have to ignore it. He’d get Jane down here, introduce Gracie, smooth out any misunderstandings and make sure all was well, then figure out what to do from there.
“I know you’re a policeman,” Gracie said.
“Good girl.” Jake’s phone vibrated again. Gracie could go with Melissa and Daniel. Lewis was already in the hospital. Robyn was in custody. Gracie would have to be protected from that quagmire, at least as much as anyone could protect her. But it seemed like Jake was emerging victorious. One step at a time. He took one more. Closer.
“But Mr. Police?” Gracie said.
“Yes, honey?”
“I need my shoe. And I’m not coming out until you get my daddy.”
* * *
“
Jake, they’re here
.” Jake couldn’t answer his phone, so Jane texted, hoping he’d look. Melissa and Daniel had arrived, but the police at the door had stopped them. She’d seen Jake in the gift shop by way of the surveillance camera, seen that Gracie hadn’t budged from behind the counter. Whatever he was saying to her, it obviously wasn’t very convincing.
“
M & D,
” she continued her text to Jake. “
Tell goons to let them in.
”
In seconds the three were running toward the gift shop, Daniel in the lead, Melissa and Jane close behind. She’d filled them in on Lewis and Robyn—as much as she could—but all they said was “Gracie. Take us to Gracie.”
Jake stepped aside to let Daniel through the door.
Gracie was nowhere in sight. And then she was. She leaped from behind the counter, flew across the floor, off balance. She wore only one shoe.
“Daniel! Melissa!”
She called him Daniel, Jane thought. More proof of the weirdness level of this family. None of her business, though. No matter what anyone called anyone, this part of the episode was over.
“Honey bear!” Daniel had met Gracie halfway, scooping her up and twirling her, then plopping her back on the tiled floor. Her dress fluttered into place. He pointed at her, Melissa hovering behind him. “Where’s your shoe? You gave us a scare.”
“That rhymes,” Gracie said. “Bear and scare. And I was the one who was scared, Daniel. Because I didn’t know who would find me. And M’lissa? I lost my shoe. Because—”
The front of Gracie’s yellow dress was smeared with red. Her mouth, too, that’s what Jane had noticed on the video. Then she saw the Twizzler wrappers on the floor. Gracie apparently had a field day at the candy counter. At least the kid is resourceful, Jane thought. And all is well.
Gracie turned and saw Jane. Her face crumbled, the corners of her red-ringed mouth turned down, bottom lip pooching out. And she burst into tears.
“Because of her!” Gracie cried. She leaped into Daniel’s arms. Melissa placed a hand on her back, comforting the girl.
“Oh, no, honey bear,” Daniel said. “That’s Jane. She’s—”
All
she needed. “Oh, no, Gracie, I—” Jane shook her head, surveying the room, looking for backup. Jake was on his cell phone, shoulders hunched over, facing the wall.
Talking to who?
Jane felt someone touch her on the shoulder.
“It’ll be okay.” Melissa had tears in her eyes. “We’ll explain it to her. And Janey?”
Jane felt her sister’s arm link through hers. “Yeah?”
“Thanks, Sis,” Melissa whispered. “We’ll take Gracie from here.”
Jane suddenly felt the entire weight of the day—the stress, the fear, the uncertainty. Her sister’s reassurance reminded her of family, and connections, and how they all had to rely on each other, somehow, no matter what. Gracie was unhurt. That’s what mattered. At least she’d been in hiding when whatever happened went down. Impossible to imagine how grotesque if this little girl had been faced with—but she wasn’t. Now the adults needed to figure out the rest of the story.
“I’m glad that at least—” Jane began. She stopped, watching as Jake brought back the little white shoe from the lobby. Daniel, kneeling, slipped it onto Gracie’s foot. Jane had to admit Daniel seemed a reasonable Prince Charming candidate, in a corporate kind of way, jeans and a light sweater, graying dark hair mussed. Not as exotic “man of mystery” as Jane had imagined.
The shoe.
That’s what was missing.
“Liss?” Jane turned to her sister. “Do me a favor? I found Gracie in the lobby earlier, right? Came up to her. But she clearly was not expecting me. Could you ask her—soon as you can—why she was there?”
Jake hadn’t wanted to miss the happy ending with Gracie and her family, but that phone call he’d ignored in the gift shop was from Catherine Siskel. Her message asked to see him. That was a big deal. He had to call her back. He watched Melissa put her arm around Jane, saw them comfort each other, watched Daniel console his daughter, watched him replace the shoe. He pulled out his phone. Catherine Siskel.