“I’m sorry for grabbing you like that, Pen,” I say. “It’s just that I really feel like we need to do our best on our own to find Chloe.”
“But the house detective will be trained—”
I raise my hands and she does something that breaks my heart. She backs away. Backs away out of fear.
“Pen,” I add, my throat closing in on itself, voice choking. “What are you doing?”
Her eyes fill.
“Oh my God,” she says. “I’m so sorry, Doc. I didn’t mean to.”
She reverses course, steps into me, kisses me on the cheek.
“You’re afraid of me. I don’t blame you. I’ve become a monster. Prison can do that.”
I never actually murdered anyone. But what Penny doesn’t realize is that something like sixty-five percent of all paroled murderers end up killing again.
“No, I do not accept that,” she affirms while anxiously twisting the metal ring on her finger. “I am most definitely not afraid of you. And you are not a monster. You are my husband and I love you very much.”
Her words are sweet. Like a cool drink of water for a parched man who thirsts for reassurance. This is a big bad world I’ve reentered, and with Chloe missing, it’s only getting bigger and far more volatile. Maybe the whole world is a prison. I need for Penny to know she can trust me. Otherwise, we share nothing together. We are adrift, lost in a sea of dread and suspicion.
“Where do we start looking?” she asks.
I gaze across the parking lot onto Lake Placid’s quaint village and the main street that runs through it.
“Let’s be smart and start at the start,” I offer, not without a smile.
“You’re a poet.”
“Don’t I know it.”
Penny takes hold of my hand and together we make our way across the parking lot, like two lost souls making their way through a thick, dark wood.
CHAPTER 9
TO OUR IMMEDIATE right is the hotel bar. A glitzy affair that years ago served as the most popular biker bar in the village. I recall hanging out there not long after the 1980 Olympics when I was a young teen and you could easily buy a beer with a fake ID. Tough, leather-clad bikers would carve their names into the tables with their Bowie knives and switchblades. Loose women would pull up their t-shirts, show you their wears for a buck. It was a great place to waste away an afternoon, day drinking, playing darts and pool, and listening to ear-piercing classic rock n’ roll. But now all that’s been replaced with bright lights, glass, stainless steel, and colorful plastic.
“Is this even worth it?” I pose. “I don’t see an eleven-year-old being welcome at an adult bar like this one.”
“Let’s at least ask the bartender if he’s seen her,” Penny suggests.
“Leave no stone unturned. I get it, Pen.”
She pulls out her smartphone, pulls up a recent photo of Chloe in the gallery. I’m not able to look at the picture for very long. Maybe a few fleeting seconds. Somehow seeing Chloe standing at the bus stop in her short white dress and pink Converse sneakers, her sandy blonde hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, her Selena Gomez backpack strapped to her shoulders, her eyes full and bright and optimistic because it’s the first day of school, robs me of my breath, fills my stomach with a pile of stones. Have I been absent from her life for that long?
… You’ve been absent from Chloe’s life for her entire eleven years, Sid. Stop fooling yourself into believing that the phone calls, the few scattered letters, and the occasional visits made up for not physically being there for her …
And now she’s gone.
Penny steps into the bar through the already open door. I’m right behind her. She hasn’t even said a word to the young man tending bar before she’s holding up the digital photo of Chloe for him to view. The act catches him a little by surprise. He squints his eyes, gazing at the cell phone–sized photo, and wipes his hands with a white bar rag.
“Can I help you?” he inquires.
“Have you seen this girl?” Penny asks.
My eyes focus on her slim body, the way her bare knees are knocking together, the heel on her sandal-covered foot tapping the tiled floor like she’s keeping time to some frantic tune she’s been playing over and over again in her head.
“She’s our daughter,” Penny goes on. “And we can’t find her. Did she happen to come by here?”
The bartender, sensing the importance of what’s happening, cocks his head over his shoulder. He’s young. Maybe twenty-five, his thick black hair combed back on his head and held in place with gel, or what does Penny call it? Product. He gently sets the towel back down onto the bar, and then sadly, infuriatingly, shakes his head.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
Penny peels her eyes away from him. She scans the entire horseshoe-shaped bar. A young couple occupies two stools at the opposite end. They’re still dressed in their bathing suits, having obviously just come up from the beach to enjoy a nice quiet late afternoon cocktail.
“What about them?” Penny says.
“Miss,” the bartender says, “they only just came in. Maybe it’s better if you—”
“They have eyes, don’t they?” Penny snaps.
She goes around the bar to the young couple.
I follow.
“Pardon me,” Penny says, holding up the phone for the young woman and her partner. “I’m sorry to disturb your drink, but our daughter is lost and we were wondering if you might have happened to see her. She was on the hotel beach with us just this morning. But now she seems to have disappeared.”
The more Penny talks … the more she attempts to explain herself, her situation … the more her voice rattles, her throat chokes, and her emotions take over. We’re only just starting our search and she’s becoming a wreck.
I take a step forward, try hard to plant a smile on my face.
The woman is attractive, with dark hair, accented with streaks of blonde. I can’t tell whether the blonde is natural or the result of a dye job. Her partner is in shape, head shaved, with a tattoo on his left bicep that says Semper Fi. A Marine.
He shakes his head, presses his lips together.
“Sorry,” he says, following up with a swig of his beer. “I haven’t seen her.”
“Neither have I,” the young woman reveals. Then, reading the desperation in our faces, “Say, do you need my help with anything?”
“Just keep an eye out if you can,” Penny pleads. “If you should happen to spot her, tell her this: her mother and father are desperate to find her. Tell her to go straight to the hotel lobby.” She looks at me while patting her pockets. “I need a pen, Sid.”
I look around. Finally, calling out to the bartender. “You got a spare pen, pal?”
He reaches into his shirt pocket, pulls out a pen, tosses it to me. I snatch it from out of the air, hand it to Penny. She takes hold of a bar napkin. She writes down her cell phone number along with the names Penny and Sidney. She hands it to the young woman.
“Like I said,” Penny goes on, “just keep an eye out, if you can.”
“We will,” says the Marine. “You have my word.”
We leave the bar feeling no better off than when we entered.
CHAPTER 10
OUTSIDE, PENNY WALKS away from the bar’s open door.
She cries, “Shit! Shit!”
Several passersby can’t help but crane their necks to see who’s doing the shouting. A few speed up as they move on past, as if Penny is about to explode for real. A couple others stop and gawk. Two teenage boys in particular.
“Keep moving,” I say to them, muscles tense, my expression hard as a rock.
“No wait,” Penny says, once again pulling out her cell phone. She shows them the digital photo of Chloe. “Have you boys seen our daughter? We’re looking for her.”
The scruffy, t-shirted boys look into one another’s eyes.
“Ummm, that’s like a negative,” the first one says, his voice mock surfer dude. “Sorry.”
“If you see my daughter,” Penny says, “let her know her mom and dad are trying to find her. Spread the word.”
“We will, for sure,” says the second kid.
I thank them. They run off.
Penny shoves her phone back into her bag, bends over, both hands planted on her knees. It’s like somebody sucker punched her in the stomach. I place my hand on her back, run it gently up and down.
“This is all wrong, Sidney,” she utters, her voice sounding hoarse and painful. “Something’s not right.” She’s breathing heavily, in and out. “We’re not going about this the right way.”
She stands up tall, her face pale and tear-streaked.
“We’re doing all we can,” I insist. “We’re looking for our daughter, Pen.”
“We need the police. We can’t do this ourselves. Why can’t you see that, Sidney?”
Gone is the reference to my nickname, Doc. And all the affection that went with it.
Exhaling. “I’m fresh out of prison, Penny.”
“Meaning what?” she begs.
“Meaning we have to be smart about this. I just spent ten years in prison for being an accomplice in the murder of an entire family. Now, I’m not out of the joint a full week and my daughter goes missing. How the hell is that going to look to the police?”
My teeth cut through the already tender flesh on my bottom lip. Just enough to cause some blood to seep into my mouth. I taste the salt, feel the pain. It’s what keeps me in check. Keeps me from exploding. From doing something I’d rather not do, which, right this second, is tear this town apart, inch by inch, until I find my daughter. I need to stay in control or this mission is shot to shit before it even gets started.
Penny, still breathing hard.
“Are you okay, Pen?”
“You know the answer to that, Doc, so why bother asking it in the first place?”
Back to calling me Doc. We’re making some progress here with one another. People are passing us by on the sidewalk. Husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, entire families on vacation. They’re eating hotdogs or licking ice cream cones. They’re carrying shopping bags and pushing baby carriages. They’re laughing, playing, and not caring about anything.
“This is my fault,” she says, after a bit. “I should have bought her the phone.”
“I don’t understand.”
She sniffles, once more finger-combs her hair.
“Just before you got out,” she continues, “Chloe was begging me for an iPhone. As an early birthday present.” Her eyes rolling around in their sockets. “You heard her this morning.”
I also remember little Susan on the beach, arguing with her parents over their refusal to buy her an iPhone, just like Chloe argued with Penny earlier.
“An iPhone seems a little extravagant for an eleven-year-old girl,” I say. “I don’t know a lot about it, but I think she’s too young.”
Penny, nodding.
“That’s what I said. I told her she could have one when she got into high school and not before. It’s a mini computer, which means creeps can text her, email her, Snapchat her.” She looks at me with wide, wet, pleading eyes. “You see what I’m saying here, Doc? I was trying to protect her. I was raising her all alone and I was trying to do the right thing for her safety. Her survival in a messed-up crazy world.” Sighing, sadly. “Now this.”
I wrap my arms around her, pull her into me.
“You did your best,” I say. “You are a fantastic mother. Take it from me. A man who regrets the day he was born.”
“But don’t you see, Doc?” she says. “If I’d gotten her the phone, all we’d have to do is call her.” Shaking her head in frustration. “Just like that kid Susan said, it’s a safety issue, one way or another.”
Something flashes through my brain. Once more, a shred of hope injected into my veins.
“What about Chloe’s iPad? Can you somehow text with her or email?”
I release her. She steps slowly back. She’s thinking it over.
“Jesus,” she mutters to herself. “It never dawned on me that I might be able to WhatsApp her.”
“What’s WhatsApp?”
“It’s a kind of texting service. You can call with it, too, but you have to have internet or Wi-Fi for it to work. It’s for people who don’t want to pay to text or make phone calls. It’s all free.”
“Can you WhatsApp with your phone? The one my lawyer gave me is an old flip top. It was old ten years ago.”
“Yes, I have WhatsApp on my phone.”
“What have we got to lose, Pen?”
She pulls her cell back out of her bag, finger taps onto an app. I can’t be sure what she’s doing, her fingers are going so fast, but it looks like she’s typing Chloe’s name into the WhatsApp search engine.
Her eyes light up.
“Oh my God, she is on WhatsApp. I can call her.”
“Do it now,” I plead. “Don’t wait.”
She taps a button and puts the phone to her ear. Gritting her teeth, she waits and waits. Then, shaking her head.
“She’s not answering,” she grouses.
“At least leave her a text message,” I insist. “Like I said, what have we got to lose?”
She rapid fires a text into the WhatsApp message sending portal. Hits SEND.
“What did you write, Penny?”
“I told her we’re looking for her. To go to the hotel front desk immediately.”
“You told her we love her, Pen?”
“You gotta ask, Doc?”
There it is again … the feeling of wanting to tear the town apart. Penny is staring down at the face of her phone, as if this will make Chloe text us back all the faster.
“So what do we do now?” I go on.
When my cell phone rings, my heart nearly ceases to beat.
CHAPTER 11
HEART POUNDING AGAINST sternum, I pull the phone from my jeans pocket. I don’t need to see the number to know who it belongs to. Aside from my lawyer, Joel, and Penny, the only other person who has this number is my parole officer, Drew Lochte.
I gaze at the number anyway.
It’s him. Drew.
The phone is ringing and I’m hesitating. I know I should be answering it. That the last thing I should be doing is letting it ring and ring. Ignoring your parole officer after you’ve been paroled from a maximum-security prison just days ago is not exactly the best course of action. But I’m entirely stressed out. My daughter is missing. She’s my responsibility. Also, I’ve been issued another mandate that I’ve ignored. Like job hunting, for instance.
Under normal circumstances, a man newly paroled after incarceration for such a serious crime would be required to live in a government-run halfway house. I’d be allowed outside the house for working hours only. The rest of the time I’d be required to be present and accounted for inside house walls, under strict supervision. I might even be required to wear an ankle monitor.
But Joel worked out a sweet deal for me. An impossible deal.
In exchange for my testimony and for naming Rabuffo and everyone who surrounded him, I was offered a lenient parole. After all, I hadn’t actually killed anyone. I was just the driver. But that didn’t mean I didn’t have to play by the rules. Just one screwup … just one seemingly unsightly situation like my missing daughter, for instance, and the State of New York could demand my immediate re-incarceration. What I mean is, what if the police suspect I had a hand in her going missing?
“Doc,” Penny says, breaking me out of my spell. “Are you going to get the damned phone?”
It stops ringing.
It’s answer enough.
I pocket the phone, knowing that I must call Drew back as soon as possible. Even if we don’t find Chloe, I must call him back within the hour. I picture the wiry, half African American, half Caucasian man seated behind his desk in the parole offices. Maybe the top button on his button-down shirt is undone, the ball knot on his tie hanging down low. He’s seated
inside a cubicle that’s identical to the other fifty cubicles that occupy the floor of the downtown Albany state government building. Phones ringing, fax machines spitting out paper, computer keyboards click-clacking, the perpetual monotone banter of voices all competing with one another. I see him pressing the tip of his ballpoint pen against a box on a standard black-on-white form. I see him checking the box on the phone call log. “No answer.”
It’s a check against me. Against my future as a free man.
Putting the phone away, I inhale a deep breath. I check my wristwatch. It’s after four in the afternoon already.
“The WhatsApp text,” I say. “Has Chloe responded?”
She whispers, “No.” Shakes her head. “If she had her iPod on her, which she always does, she would have responded by now.”
“Maybe she’s in a place that doesn’t have Wi-Fi,” I suggest.
“Like where?”
The woods? The trunk of a car? The bottom of Mirror Lake? The bottom of Lake Placid? For Christ sakes, if only I could stop my imagination from working. From torturing me with bad daydreams.
“We’re wasting time, Penny,” I say after a beat. “Let’s get searching.”
“Promise me something first, Sidney,” she says, looking into my eyes.
“What is it?”
“If we don’t find Chloe here, in the downtown, we go to the hotel detective. Agreed?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not on your life,” she says.
I watch her back as she starts walking.
We make a check on almost every clothing shop, bookstore, fly fishing outlet, food shop, bakery, coffeehouse, pizza joint, and bar on both sides of the strip. We look inside the old stone chapel that’s located in the village center atop a small hill and we even poke our heads into a Chinese takeout joint. But other than the Chinese employees, it’s empty.
We stop people on the sidewalk, show them Chloe’s photo, ask them if they’ve seen our daughter. Everyone seems to react the same way. They purse their lips, scrunch their foreheads, and look away, as though ashamed of themselves for not having spotted the missing child.
Girl Who Wasn’t There Page 5