Dead Silence

by Wendy Corsi Staub

  “Yeah, and this new one is probably even crazier. I heard it’s the little kid who was found out on Cortland Hollow Road the other—”

  The Angler is on his feet, headed for the door.

  “Hey, wait! Mister!” Ponytail comes barreling at him. “I’m getting your white toast.”

  “Changed my mind.”

  “But you had coffee! You can’t skip out on your—”

  “Here.” The Angler thrusts a couple of bills at him. Canadian currency. Another block plucked from the teetering foundation.

  If the tower falls, you lose . . .

  Amelia sits on the edge of the bed tying her sneakers with Clancy diving for the laces. She’s covered her blisters in bandages, but they’ve already nearly healed. If only the rest of her were as resilient.

  Jessie knocks. “Mimi?”

  “Come on in. Just be careful because there’s a kitten on the loose.”

  The door opens. Jessie is still in her red plaid pajama bottoms and thermal tee shirt she’d been wearing earlier, her dark hair a pouf of bedhead. She waves a white envelope.

  “Here’s Theodore’s spit sample. Can you drop it off at the post office on your way to the festival?”

  “Wait, Theodore’s?”

  Jessie steps into the room, pulling the door nearly shut behind her, hissing, “It’s Prewitt’s. I don’t want you to get into trouble.”

  “Jessie . . .”

  “No, listen, I was thinking we can fill out the paperwork like it’s Theodore’s, and I’ll sign the waiver so that it’s all legal just in case . . . you know.”

  “And what happens when it comes back with a match to Prewitt’s family, wherever they are?”

  “Happy ending. Who’s going to press charges? But in the meantime, if anything goes wrong, I’ll take the fall. I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard. I don’t want you to be an accomplice in this.”

  Amelia has to smile at that. “It’s not a jewel heist.”

  “I know, but it’s illegal.”

  “Well, like you said, it’s not as if I don’t already bend the rules to help my clients find answers. Anyway, when the Wi-Fi is fixed, I’m going to look up the name Prewitt on a few genealogy sites.”

  “Let’s hope that’s soon. When it’s back up, our password is . . .” Jessie leans in and whispers, “dimeys2–1–1–9–9–0. No caps.”

  “Thanks. Why are we whispering?”

  “Because the numbers also open Billy’s gun safe in our bedroom closet. Do you want to write it down?”

  “Nope, got it.” She grins. “First time Billy kissed you, right? February 1, 1990, at the Dugout?”

  It had been their favorite local dive bar. Tuesday and Thursday happy hours, ten beers for a dollar—dimeys.

  “Mimi! Now who’s got the amazing memory?”

  “The next day, you told me you were going to marry him. You were so sure . . . I remember that you wrote it down and sealed it in an envelope and mailed it to yourself as proof.”

  “Yes! My Groundhog Day prediction. I still have it somewhere. Si called me Punxsutawney Phil for a while after that. Good times.” Jessie’s smile is wistful. She sighs, looking down just in time to spot Clancy about to dart into the hallway. “Hey! Where do you think you’re going, little stinker?”

  She scoops him up and hands him to Amelia.

  “Sorry. I’ll lock him in when I go.”

  “Thanks. And, Mimi—what made you change your mind? About Prewitt’s DNA?”

  “My own test results coming back with a match after all these years. I don’t want him to go through the endless waiting, not knowing. Getting the paperwork and permits in order could take years, and by then, it might be too late. If we can send him back home before he’s scarred for life—”

  “If he has a home to go to.”

  “If he does, and if we can find it . . . we have to.”

  “How long will it take to get the results?”

  “Normally? Months.”

  “Months?” Looking as though she might cry, Jessie buries her cheek against the kitten’s head, stroking his fur. “It takes that long for a simple lab test?”

  “It’s not that simple, and no, but there’s a huge backlog, but I’ll see what I can do.” Sneakers tied, Amelia stands and grabs a jean jacket. “Is there still a packing and shipping place down on the Commons?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll have it overnighted to the lab. And then I’ll give my friend who works there a heads-up. Maybe he can expedite it.”

  “Thank you, Mimi. You’re the most amazing person in the world.”

  “No, Jessie, you are. I wish I had a fraction of your strength and compassion. I’ve spent almost thirty years being self-obsessed.”

  “That’s not true. You’ve devoted your adult life to helping people find out who they are.”

  “Because it’s cathartic, not because I’m some noble heroine.”

  “Hey, I’m the therapist here. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Look what you’ve been through.”

  “So have you. You’ve built this amazing life. You have a family, a home . . .”

  A marriage.

  Whose fault is it that Amelia’s is faltering?

  Not just Aaron’s.

  How much time has she wasted over the years, trying to figure out who’d left her in that Harlem church? How much time endlessly, fruitlessly searching—her own dimmest memories, strangers’ faces, yellowed documents . . .

  How much time speculating that someone out there is just as desperate to find her? Weighing whether it would be better to discover that her parents hadn’t come looking for her because they’d been dead, rather than that they just didn’t give a damn?

  It turns out neither is the case. She’d had them all along.

  So, yeah. She doesn’t want to look back, years from now, and realize that she’d also had—and lost—the love of her life.

  She grabs her phone and heads for the door.

  After a couple of hours at the county sheriff’s office with Lieutenant Mai Xiang, Billy is no closer to the answers he’d hoped to find.

  You’d think a name like Prewitt would be unique enough to turn up a missing persons report if one exists anywhere in the world, but so far, it has not. It appears that no one has reported Prewitt missing because no one is looking for him.

  Billy’s gut tells him that a crime led to the child’s disappearance—or rather, his appearance; a crime that hasn’t yet been discovered or reported.

  He imagines someone—Prewitt’s homme dangereux—breaking into a sleeping household in the dead of night, killing the mother, abducting the child . . .

  Or a carjacking, maybe, where the perp didn’t realize there was a child in the backseat . . .

  Every time he thinks of something like that, he feels a twinge in his heart.

  Not, he assures himself, in a medical emergency way.

  In an emotional way. The kid tugs his heartstrings, that’s all. He’s worried. And he’s exhausted. He’d had a hard time falling asleep and staying asleep. Indigestion had him tossing and turning—not from anything he’d eaten, because he barely had, but from all the stress.

  Damn that Dave Carver.

  He’d finally fallen into a sound sleep in the wee hours, only to be awakened by Espinoza’s crow down the hall.

  Poor Theodore. He shouldn’t have been so hard on him, should have had more patience, like Jessie.

  Usually she’s the impatient one, in life, if not so much with the kids. In life, and with Billy.

  He’d been glad to escape the house and her worried gaze this morning. She kept asking him if he was sure he felt okay as he’d knelt in the hallway, installing the slide bolt on the outside of Chip’s bedroom door to keep the kitten confined.

  “Don’t you dare die on me, Billy,” she’d said. “Don’t you dare.”

  “Okay, for one thing, if I die, it’s not by choice—unless you keep treating me like some kind of invalid and drive me over the edge. A
nd for another thing, I feel fine.”

  And he does, more or less. He’s just feeling anxious about the case, though it isn’t his own—he doesn’t work for the sheriff’s department. Still, they’re conducting a thorough investigation, and Lieutenant Xiang has noted even the most minor details he’s provided. They’ve searched the local area and surrounding counties for children who share the name—first or last—and who might be roughly his age and fit his physical description. There haven’t been many, and so far, all are accounted for. Now, as they await a call back from CPS about getting a French interpreter over to the house, the lieutenant is preparing for a press conference to release the new clues to the child’s background.

  They go down the list again.

  He speaks French; he seems to have—or have had—a mother; he sucks his right thumb; he might come from a rural background, given his recognition of the rooster; and he’s probably been relatively sheltered from the modern world.

  “The hospital’s immunity detection bloodwork indicates that he hasn’t had routine childhood vaccinations, and that’s not unusual in the Amish community,” Lieutenant Xiang reminds him. “We have to consider that, and the fact that he’s unfamiliar with everyday American foods or household items, you said?”

  “Yes. My wife said it was as if he’d never seen a television before,” Billy confirms.

  Still, the Amish theory doesn’t sit well with him. The child’s clothing wouldn’t support it, nor the fact that he speaks French, rather than Pennsylvania Dutch or German.

  He shares his own theories with her—about a kidnapping, a carjacking.

  “You may be right,” Lieutenant Xiang says. “And if that’s the case, we’ll need to bring in the BCI.” That’s the state police department’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation. “But let’s see where this takes us first. Thanks to you, we have a lot more to go on now.”

  She puts aside her notebook and takes another can of Red Bull from the fridge—her third since he arrived. “Can I get you more coffee?”

  He hesitates, considering. “I’ve had so much this morning that all that acid has messed up my stomach. But then again, I can use the caffeine.”

  “Why don’t you go home and grab a nap instead of trying to stay awake?”

  Home? Nap?

  Sure.

  Roosters, kittens, Little Boy Blue, a houseguest, repairs to be made, and Theodore, and Jessie looking at him like he’s a gunshot victim about to keel over . . .

  “Sergeant? Please go home.” Lieutenant Xiang is not making a suggestion.

  He bristles. “Look, I know this isn’t my case, but—”

  “It’s not that.” She pops the top of her can and takes a sip, regarding him. “You and your wife have a lot on your hands, and you just really look like you can use a break. I think you should take one. There’s no telling what might happen with this case once we issue the press release. I’ll text you if anything comes up. Meanwhile, keep your ears open and let me know if Prewitt tells you anything else that might help before I can get over there to talk to him.”

  “Will do.” Billy stands and tosses his empty coffee cup into the garbage can on the way to the door.

  Maybe she’s right. He’s completely wiped out, his legs a little shaky and maybe not just from all the caffeine.

  In fact, he hasn’t had as much as he usually does. Just the cup he’d taken from home, and the one Lieutenant Xiang had given him when he’d arrived. By this time on an ordinary day, he’s drunk at least twice that much coffee.

  This is not, however, an ordinary day.

  He gets into the SUV and is backing out of his parking spot when a text buzzes his phone.

  Lieutenant Xiang.

  Already?

  He pulls back into the spot and opens the text. It contains just two words.

  Come back!

  Chapter Fourteen

  The tropical storm bound for South America has undergone an unprecedented intensification overnight, transforming into a Category 5 hurricane. It’s also made a right turn, now heading for Cuba.

  Rob and Barnes learn these astounding facts from their tour guide at the Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción. The young man mentions it nonchalantly, in Spanish, as they’re gazing at the country’s oldest artifact, the Cruz de la Parra, a large wooden cross planted by Christopher Columbus in 1492.

  Rob and Barnes exchange a look.

  “Did he say . . .”

  “He did,” Barnes replies, “but that’s not possible.”

  “Si. It is possible,” the guide tells them.

  “I thought you didn’t speak English.”

  “I do not speak it well.”

  He speaks it well enough to inform them that meteorologists have now issued a hurricane watch for the southeastern provinces, including Baracoa.

  “But I thought it was going to hit Venezuela,” an older woman protests as if the guide has some say over it. She’s American, with a sunburnt nose, and she’s wearing khaki cargo capris and a wide-brimmed hat with a chin cord knotted tightly under her double chin.

  The guide shrugs. “Changed direction. But it is a few days away. Please do not worry.”

  She looks worried. “We flew here on a tiny plane. It was bad enough in nice weather.”

  Sing it, sister. Barnes asks the woman when she’s leaving.

  “Sunday night. We fly back to Havana, and then connect to Miami.”

  “You will be out in plenty of time,” the guide assures her.

  Barnes and Rob are also flying to Havana Sunday night, but they don’t return to New York until Monday.

  Remembering that there’s Wi-Fi in this area, he reaches into his pocket for his phone. Damn. He’d left it back at the house.

  There’s something to be said for pulling up the AccuWeather app whenever you’re wondering whether Mother Nature is going to send rain. Or unleash a Category 5 storm the likes of which the world has never seen.

  It’ll be four years next month since Hurricane Sandy had hit New York. He’d helped search for the missing, many of whom had failed to evacuate the coastline. Eventually, they’d all turned up, one way or another.

  The guide has moved on, winding down the tour, telling them that Baracoa is the chocolate capital of Cuba and then waxing on about the chocolate factory.

  Enough already, Willy Wonka.

  Barnes has no desire to be swept away and drown in a ferocious storm surge. He wants to talk to Rob about trying to get out sooner. Maybe there’s a flight back to the States on Sunday, ahead of the storm, or even tonight.

  After the tour, the guide suggests that they linger in the centuries-old cathedral for a few moments of quiet prayer. Barnes kneels beside Rob in a pew.

  Unlike his friend, he’s no longer a churchgoing man, as he’d told Miguel last night. But as he kneels here, some of it comes back to him—bible verses, joyful hymns, prayers. He asks God—and his friend Wash, if he’s listening and has any pull—to help this island and its people weather the storm.

  Rob is still kneeling, head bowed, hands clasped. Barnes sits back and looks around.

  Brilliant red and golden light falls through stained-glass windows, illuminating ancient tile floors where his forebears might have walked, and the altar where they might have worshipped, hundreds of years before he was born. Christopher Columbus haunts the place, according to the guard. Maybe his ancestors’ spirits do, too.

  Barnes wonders about them, about all the people who have come and gone in his own lifetime—the ones he’s loved and lost, the ones he hadn’t known as well as he could have, should have, or had thought he had; the ones he longs to know . . .

  The ones?

  The one.

  Yesterday, after the dream he’d had on that perilous flight, he’d considered trying to find his daughter again. That had been mortality talking, reminding him that one day he’ll be all out of chances to make things right. He’ll be gone, just like his father, Abuela, his friend Wash . . .

  Gone.
All of them, just about everyone he’s ever loved.

  Even his mother, still hanging in there, health-wise, but never the same woman after Dad died. And Sully, and Stef, even the strangers he’s tried to find over the years . . .

  Rob nudges him and motions for the door. He rises and slowly makes his way down the aisle, haunted by the ghosts and by Ana Benita’s prescient parting words about Baracoa.

  “No one goes there unless they want to get lost . . .”

  “You really want to get lost?”

  Maybe he really does. Maybe, when you spend your life mourning loved ones and searching for the missing, you start to feel a little lost yourself. Maybe you relate more to the departed than to the ones they’ve left behind. Maybe—when you realize there’s no one in your own life who would be shattered if you disappeared—then maybe you, too, want to just . . .

  They step out into sunshine so bright it blinds him before he can pull his sunglasses from his pocket. Barnes closes his eyes, and when he opens them, he sees her.

  There across the square, beneath a building’s pillared overhang, is Gypsy Colt.

  Amelia’s sneakers rasp fallen leaves along the concrete sidewalk as she heads downtown, phone pressed to her ear, ringing . . . ringing . . .

  Voice mail.

  Aaron’s probably in the shower, or on a plane.

  She forces an upbeat note into her voice. “Hey, it’s me! Call me back as soon as possible because I’ve got big news.”

  The DNA match—again, front and center.

  No. It’s not just that.

  She takes a deep breath. “Aaron, I miss you, and . . . if you’re already gone, have a great trip, but if you’re not . . .” Throat aching, she adds simply, “I love you.”

  She disconnects the call and presses a forefinger to the damp corner of each eye, walking on. She needs to regain composure before she dials her Georgia cousin.

  She’s spent her career helping clients make these calls—rehearsing with them what to say and how to say it. Occasionally, she’d even made the calls for those who can’t muster the strength. Now that it’s her own turn, she gets it. Let someone else be the buffer, on the front lines of rejection.