by Ball, Donna
He put away his phone and he looked at me. His eyes were two dark orbs that looked through me and saw nothing. He said, “It’s Mel.” His voice was stunned and laced with disbelief, the voice of a man who never expected to speak the words he was about to say. “She’s disappeared.”
~*~
Your mind goes down all the usual paths. Misunderstanding. Missed connection. She’ll be home before we get there, apologetic and contrite and with a really, really good explanation. Even though I knew Rita would not have called in a panic if there was a chance any of those things were true. It was dark. It had been dark for almost an hour. And Rita had been searching for Melanie since sunset.
I said things like, “She’s a smart girl.” Just a little too independent. “She knows how to take care of herself.” And she wouldn’t just disappear. “She knows her way around the island.” But her phone was lying on her bed where she had left it before she went to the beach that afternoon. She couldn’t call for help if she wanted to.
Then there were those other paths, the paths I knew Miles’s mind was taking too, the paths I didn’t want to explore, couldn’t bear to explore. The daughter of a wealthy man. An island with a foreign government, surrounded by water where anything could—and often did—happen. Do you know why burials at sea are so efficient, Miss Pretty Lady?
Melanie would never, ever just disappear. Not if she had a choice.
“Okay,” I breathed out, hardly aware I was speaking aloud. “Just wait. We don’t know the details. It could be simple. Just wait.”
The drive to the marina had taken about twenty minutes. The drive home took half that time, and Miles never said a single word.
The lights were blazing all over the house and the grounds when we pulled up. A single police car was out front. It was one of those ridiculous little Euro cars with only one light on top and it wasn’t even flashing. I don’t know why a detail like that should strike me as so outrageous, but it did.
I don’t remember leaving the car. I barreled into the house with my breath dragging in my chest, and Miles a powerful shadow at my side. No scrabbling of claws on the marble floor. No cheerful, “Hi, Raine!” No waving golden tail. Just harsh lights and cold silence and Rita, looking small and vulnerable as she stood in the center of the big room, hugging her arms and talking to the uniformed officer. When she saw Miles, she broke off and rushed to him; he embraced her and they held on to each other, hard, for a long moment before he said, “Tell me.”
But because she was his mother, she touched his soot-smudged cheek and noticed the burn holes in his shirt and she said, “What happened?”
“Nothing. A fire at the marina. It doesn’t matter. How long has she been gone?”
The officer said, “You are Monsieur Young?”
Miles barely glanced at him. He held his mother’s eyes, willing her to stay calm. “What happened?”
Her hand fluttered to her lips and she took half a breath to compose herself. “We took Cisco for a walk on the beach after dinner. We kept him on leash, like you asked, Raine. We didn’t go far. It was still light when we got back. Melanie and Cisco ran ahead up the steps, the way they always do. They went through the gate and it closed behind them. I was only a few minutes behind…” She had to stop and I could tell she was trying not to cry. I wanted to tell her it wasn’t her fault, that everything was going to be okay, and I wanted to scream at her to go on.
Rita braced herself and continued, “Everything seemed normal at first. The gate was locked, the back doors were open but you know Melanie never closes them. I went inside and called her, but she didn’t answer. I—I thought she didn’t hear me. We were going to watch a movie, so I made popcorn. Then I realized I didn’t hear Cisco.”
She glanced at me, but I was okay. I knew I was going to hear this. Melanie wouldn’t leave Cisco. Cisco wouldn’t leave Melanie. Not if either one of them had a choice.
Rita swallowed hard. “That’s when I started looking for them, but I didn’t really panic. Not then. I thought Melanie had taken Cisco to the pool, so I checked. I walked all around the grounds, calling them. Then I checked the house, every room. But they were gone.”
Okay then. This is what I do. I find missing people. I knew the questions to ask. I knew the steps to take. This is what I do.
I said, “How much time had passed by then since you last saw them?”
She looked uncertain. “I don’t know. I might have been five minutes behind them at the beach. It takes four minutes to make popcorn… Maybe fifteen, twenty minutes.”
“And then you searched the neighborhood?” Because that’s what I would have done.
She nodded. “I thought… I don’t know, I thought Cisco might have gotten away from her and she chased him down the street. Or that for some reason she’d decided to take him on a walk outside the gate. I searched and I called until it was too dark to see, and I knocked on doors when I could, and then I came back here but they still weren’t home…” Her voice had gotten higher and tighter with every word until finally it broke. She started to cry.
I said, “Was the front door closed?”
She nodded.
“And the front gate?”
“Locked.”
Which eliminated the possibility that Cisco had run into the street, or left the property at all of his own volition.
Miles said, “What about the security cameras?”
The policeman spoke up for the first time. “I naturally checked the cameras, monsieur. Unfortunately, they were malfunctioning.”
Miles demanded harshly, “What the hell do you mean, malfunctioning?”
“I mean that they do not appear to have recorded anything since late this afternoon. Beyond that, I cannot say. I am not a technician.”
In a missing child case, the first twenty-four hours are critical. That’s why we have Amber Alerts. I doubted there was an equivalent here on the island, but at least two hours had already passed.
I turned to the officer. “Have you sent out her photograph to every officer on the force?” The beach house was filled with pictures of Melanie. But none of them were with Cisco.
“It is routine mademoiselle, however—”
“You gave him a recent picture, right?” I asked Rita. “And a description of what she was wearing?”
At Rita’s affirmative I turned back to the officer. “Make sure it goes out to neighboring islands too, and into every place of business on the island. Meanwhile I need a sectional street map broken down into grids. I need people going door to door, and people on the beach. I need a helicopter with search lights to sweep the beach and the estates we can’t get into.” I need my dog. “Have you even talked to the neighbors? Do you know if there were any strange vehicles around ? Did anyone hear anything?”
The officer was young and smoothed-cheeked, and the indulgent, faintly condescending smile he gave made me want to slap him. “Mademoiselle may have seen too much American television,” he said. “Matters such as this, they tend to resolve themselves much more simply than one might imagine.”
Miles took an abrupt step toward him and I grabbed his arm, knowing exactly what he was about to do because I wanted to do the same thing. I spoke before Miles could. “Do you know Inspector LeClerk?” I demanded.
He looked startled, and a little less smug than he had before. “Mais certainment. But—”
“Call him,” I said.
“I hardly think—”
Miles said, very lowly, “Do it. Do everything this young woman tells you to do and do it right now or I will have more than your job, are we very clear on that?”
I waited just long enough to see the young officer, with an angry flush creeping up his cheeks, snatch out his phone and stride toward the door to make the call, then I turned back to Rita. “Where is Cisco’s leash?”
She looked at me through wet lashes as though wondering whether I was thinking clearly. “I—I haven’t seen it. I don’t know.”
I made a quick search o
f the deck and the pool area, the kitchen and both my room and Melanie’s. I came back down, breathless, in time to hear the officer say in a stilted tone, “The inspector is on his way, monsieur. However, he asked me to convey to you that we are a small police force with limited resources…”
I had heard those words once too often today, and I interrupted without hesitation. “I think whatever happened occurred before Melanie had time to take Cisco’s leash off. She came up the stairs, entered the security code…” I looked at Rita. “The security lock was still working when you came up?”
She nodded and I went on, “She came into the house through the back doors from the deck with Cisco still on his leash, and went out the front door, closing it behind her. Then she left by the front gate, closing it behind her.”
The policeman said, with another smug twitch of his lips, “What you are saying, mademoiselle, is that the little girl took her puppy dog for a walk.”
Automatically I put my hand out to restrain Miles, but he fortunately did not see the smirk. He had his phone in hand and was dialing a number.
Miles said, “This is a monitored security system. A record is kept of every time the code is entered.”
I spoke to the officer very calmly, and quietly enough so that I hoped Miles could not hear from his position across the room, where he had walked to make his call. “Maybe that is what I’m saying. Maybe that’s all that happened. But that little girl is ten years old and she’s in a foreign country where she doesn’t speak the language and it’s dark outside.” And all she has to depend on is Cisco, I added desperately myself, Cisco, who she thinks is a combination of Lassie and Rin Tin Tin and Super Man but who is in fact just a dog, depending on her to keep him safe… A dog who would get into a car with anyone, anytime, who said “Do you want to go for a ride?”, a dog whose heart is so big he can’t even imagine that everyone he meets is not as good- intentioned as he is, a dog who only wants to make people happy…
I tightened every muscle in my body against the sobs that were building up inside me, and I finished in a low, fierce voice, “There is nothing, do you hear me, nothing more important than finding that little girl right now. Nothing.”
Miles returned to us. The white lines around his mouth were very tight and his eyes were still, but behind those eyes was busyness, thinking, examining, analyzing, postulating, forming and rejecting theories. He was a man who solved problems, who made things happen. And now he was holding himself together by nothing but sheer will.
“The back gate was last opened at 7:43,” he said. “The next time the security code was entered was for the front gate, at 9:20.”
It took me a moment to understand the implications, as it did Rita. “But—that would be when I let you in.” She glanced at the officer, and then back to Miles. “That’s not possible. Melanie had been gone for over an hour by then. I entered the code twice for the front gate, once to get out and once to get back in. I looked everywhere. She wasn’t on the property. How can that be?”
“It can’t be,” Miles said grimly. “Sometime between the time Melanie entered the code on the back gate at seven thirty five and the time you entered it at seven forty three someone overrode the security code on the front gate and came onto my property. That person took my daughter.”
~*~
It was, of course, what we all feared. It was the place your mind goes when you say Don’t go there. It was the truth none of us wanted to admit into the realm of possibility even though we all knew it was the only truth that made sense.
Inspector LeClerk arrived less than ten minutes later. He seemed unsurprised to see me, and in fact went so far as to assure Miles he had done the right thing in calling. His questions were to the point.
“Do you have any enemies, Mr. Young?”
“Have you traveled to the Middle East in the past twelve months? Brazil? Columbia?”
“How many people knew the security code? Their names, please.”
“How much cash US can you raise in twenty four hours?”
That was when Miles, with eyes as hard as flint, said, “As much as it takes.”
Rita’s hand closed around mine, bone hard, painful.
It was ten twenty-five. Did he have any idea how much time he had wasted already? Twenty four hours, that was all we had. Maybe less. I didn’t know how things worked here. It was an island, with multiple escape routes by water, by air, by land. Hiding places I couldn’t begin to fathom. Marine life that could strip a carcass bare in a matter of hours.
More than anything in the world at that moment I wanted to be home. I wanted to be home where I knew the rules, with Buck giving orders and Uncle Roe providing back-up and Aunt Mart praying quietly in the background and a dozen sheriff’s deputies with flashing blue lights combing the hillside, and the entire tracking club with dogs spread out on the search grid, and every neighbor and church member and friend and relative rallying to help. This place was not where I belonged. I was helpless here. I wanted my dog. I wanted my dog.
I had been on a search once, for a woman and her dog who had gone missing on the Appalachian Trail. We found the dog three days later, starving, dehydrated, still trailing his leash. But the body of the missing woman wasn’t found for another two weeks. In pieces.
Don’t go there, don’t go there…
I tried to play out the scene in my mind. Melanie had come into the house. Cisco would have been trailing his leash. If someone was already in the house, he would have known it immediately, he would have led her right to them….
The inspector said, “We are watching the ferry and the air strip. I have called in the gendarmes to search the streets. We will find her, monsieur.”
Miles said, “There are over a hundred private boats in the harbor with registries from all over the world. Are you going to search each of them too?” His tone was even, almost reasonable.
I thought about white slavery, about drug trafficking, and about Susan, for some reason, asking Miles for half a million dollars. How much cash can you raise in twenty four hours?
“As you know, our resources are limited. I’m afraid that would be impractical.”
Cisco would have been trailing his leash. If someone was hiding, that person might have grabbed Melanie before she could scream. It would not have been easy, getting a resistant ten- year- old girl out of the house and into a waiting vehicle with a dog barking and bounding around. What would Cisco have done?
“Then get more resources. Call Interpol.” Miles’s voice was calm, reasonable. A ticking bomb, about to explode. “Whatever the expense, I’ll cover it.”
“This is not a case for Interpol at this time. We are doing everything we can, monsieur.”
“That’s not enough!” The eruption came; eyes flaming, muscles tensing, voice roaring. He surged toward the inspector and when I reached for him he flung me off without even a glance. “It’s not enough, you pompous little pissant! This is my daughter, do you understand that? She’s been kidnapped! She’s been…”
He broke off, almost as though the echo of the words had caught up with him and he was hearing them for the first time, understanding them. Kidnapped. He stood there, nostrils flared, fists clenched, lips compressed, for another long moment. Then he said, very distinctly, “My daughter is not going to be headline news tomorrow morning. She is not going to be the target of an international search. She is not going to be what people think about for the next ten years when they hear the name of this island. It’s not going to happen, do you understand me?”
The inspector held his ground, and he held his demeanor. I had to admire him for that. He said somberly, “You may be sure we are agreed on all those points, monsieur. As I was about to say earlier, we are a small security force here on the island but we are very good at what we do. Kindly allow us to do our jobs. You can best assist by remaining calm and being prepared. A call may come.”
Or maybe that was not what had happened at all. Maybe they had surprised a burglar. Maybe he had
fled through the front door and Cisco had given chase, and Melanie had run after him. Cisco had been trailing his leash.
I said abruptly, “Miles, I need a flashlight. They wouldn’t have taken Cisco, they would be trying to get away from him. Cisco is out there somewhere, and with his leash on he couldn’t have gotten far. He may be caught on something, but even if he’s not, he doesn’t know how to find his way back here. He’s the only one who knows what really happened, and if someone took her, Cisco has the scent. If I can find him I can find Melanie, or at least get closer than we are now.”
Rita got up and left the room. The inspector gave me a skeptical glance. “Mademoiselle, I think it would be better if you did not interfere with the efforts of the gendarmes at this point. We are doing—”
Miles cut him off. “ Do you have trained dogs on your team? Are they out there searching right now?”
“I regret to say that our resources do not allow—”
“Then stay out of my way,” I said. “I know you’re just doing your job but you need to let me do mine.” As I spoke I was lacing up the pair of sneakers that I had left on the back deck that afternoon, and tying back my hair. I was still wearing my smudged and torn dinner clothes, but I could not take time to change. Too much time had passed already and I, too, had limited resources in this strange place that wasn’t my home. Without my dog, I had no resources at all.
The inspector said to me, not unkindly, “Mademoiselle, I hope I am wrong in this, but you should understand that if in fact the child has been taken, and if those responsible for doing so were clever enough to override your security code and disable the cameras, they also would have disposed of the family dog. I fear your search may be futile. ”
I stood up, my jaw set. Did he think I hadn’t thought of that? Did he? I said flatly, “Then they would have shot him at the door.”
I pushed past him to meet Rita, who returned silently with two flashlights. She put one in my hand and Miles took the other. She laid a hand gently on his arm, looking up at him with a face that was pinched and drawn and eyes that were filled with pain. For the first time I saw a woman who looked her age. “Miles,” she said softly, reluctantly, “shouldn’t you call Cynthia? She’s Melanie’s mother, she should know.”