Magic hour: a novel

by Kristin Hannah

  They’d tossed this idea back and forth like a life ring in the last few days, though it had lost its buoyancy. “I know. Hopefully she’s in the system.” It was what Julia always said.

  “Hopefully.”

  They looked at each other. The word was starting to sound frayed.

  Julia went into the house and up the stairs. With each step, the howling grew in volume. She knew what she’d find when she entered her room. Alice would be kneeling behind her plants, head down, face in her hands, rocking and howling. It was her only means of expressing sadness or fear. She was afraid now because she’d wakened alone. To an ordinary child, this might be frustrating. To Alice, it was terrifying.

  Julia was already talking when she opened the door. “Now, what’s all this racket about, Alice? Everything is fine. You’re just scared. That’s natural.”

  Alice streaked across the room in a blur of black hair, yellow dress, and spindly arms and legs. She pressed herself against Julia so closely that there was contact from waist to calf.

  Alice put her hand in Julia’s pocket.

  This was how it was lately. Alice needed to be next to Julia always, connected.

  She was sucking her thumb and looking up at Julia with a vulnerability that was both heartbreaking and terrifying.

  “Come on, Alice,” Julia said, pretending it was perfectly natural to have a young human barnacle attached to her hip. She got out her Denver Kit, a collection of toys that were helpful in gauging a child’s development.

  At the table, she set out the bell, the block, and the doll. “Sit down, Alice,” she said, knowing Alice would sit down when she did. The chairs were close enough that they could still be together.

  Side by side, with Alice’s tiny hand still tucked in Julia’s pocket, they sat down. With the Denver Kit spread out in front of them, Julia waited for Alice to make a move.

  “Come on,” Julia said. I need you to talk, little one. I know you can do it.”

  Nothing. Just the gentle in and out of the girl’s breathing.

  Desperation plucked at Julia’s confidence, broke a tender strand of it.

  “Please.” Her voice was a whisper now, not her therapist-voice at all. She thought about the passing of time and the dwindling media interest and the increasingly quiet phone lines in the police station. “Please. Come on . . .”

  WHEN ELLIE AND PEANUT ARRIVED AT THE POLICE STATION, THE BUILDING was quiet. Cal was at his desk, headphones on his head, drawing a picture of some winged creature. At their entrance, he turned the paper facedown.

  As if Ellie cared to see his bizarre sketches. He’d been doing them since sixth grade. The only difference between him and every other guy she’d ever known was that Cal had never outgrown it. There were always doodles on her pink While You Were Out messages.

  “Earl signed out,” Cal said, pushing a lock of hair out of his eyes. “Mel is going to make one more pass out toward the lake to check on the teens, and then he’s off, too.”

  In other words, life in Rain Valley was back to normal. The phones weren’t ringing and her two patrol officers were off unless someone called in.

  “And the DNA results are back. I put them on your desk.”

  Ellie stopped. They all looked at one another. After a long moment she went to her desk and sat down. The chair squeaked in protest.

  She picked up the official-looking envelope and opened it. The pages inside had a lot of mumbo-jumbo/scientist speak, but none of it mattered. At the midsection was the sentence: No match found.

  The second page was a lab report on the dress fibers. As expected, it revealed only that the dress was made of inexpensive white cotton that could have come from any of a dozen textile mills. There were no blood or semen traces in the fabric, no DNA present.

  The final paragraph of the report outlined the procedure to be followed in the event that the DNA collected from Alice was to be tested against a found sample.

  Ellie felt a wave of defeat. What now? She’d done everything she knew; hell, she’d thrown her sister to the wolves, and for what? They were no closer to an ID now than they’d been three weeks ago, and the people at DSHS were breathing down her neck.

  Cal and Peanut pulled chairs across the room and sat in front of the desk.

  “No ID?” Peanut asked.

  Ellie shook her head, unable to say it out loud.

  “You did the best you could,” Cal said gently.

  “No one coulda done any better,” Peanut agreed.

  After that, no one spoke. A real rarity here.

  Finally, Ellie pushed the papers across her desk. “Send these results out to the people who are waiting. How many requests have we gotten?”

  “Thirty-three. Maybe one of them is the match,” Peanut said hopefully.

  Ellie opened her desk drawer and pulled out the stack of papers she’d gotten from the National Center for Missing Children. She’d read it at least one hundred times, using it as the only guidance she could find. The final paragraph had been burned into her brain. She didn’t need to read it again to know what it said. If none of this produces a positive identification of the child, then social services should be called in. The child will most likely be placed in a permanent foster home or a residential treatment facility, or adopted out.

  “What do we do next?” Peanut asked.

  Ellie sighed. “We pray this DNA produces a match.”

  They all knew how unlikely that was. None of the thirty-three requests had seemed particularly promising. Most of them had been made by people—parents and lawyers and cops from other jurisdictions—who believed the child being sought was dead. None of them had described Alice’s birthmark.

  Ellie rubbed her eyes. “Let’s pack it in for the night. You can send out the DNA reports tomorrow, Pea. I have another phone conference with the lady from DSHS. That should be fun.”

  Peanut stood up. “I’m meeting Benji at the Big Bowl. Anyone want to join me?”

  “There’s nothing I like better than hanging around with fat men in matching polyester shirts,” said Cal. “I’m in.”

  Peanut glared at him. “You want me to tell Benji you called him fat?”

  Cal laughed. “It’ll come as no surprise to him, Pea.”

  “Don’t get started, you two,” Ellie said tiredly. The last thing she wanted to listen to was a he said/she said fight over nothing. “I’m going home. You should, too, Cal. It’s Friday night. The girls will miss you.”

  “The girls and Lisa went to Aberdeen to see her folks. I’m a bachelor this weekend. So, it’s the Big Bowl for me.” He looked at her. “You used to love bowling.”

  Ellie found herself remembering the summer she and Cal had worked at the Big Bowl’s lunch counter. It had been that last magical year of childhood, before all the sharp edges of adolescence poked through. They’d been outcasts together that summer, best friends in the way that only two social rejects can be. The next summer she’d been too cool for the Big Bowl.

  “That was a long time ago, Cal. I can’t believe you remember it.”

  “I remember.” There was an edge to his voice that was odd. He walked over to the hooks by the door and grabbed his coat.

  “It’s karaoke night,” Peanut said, smiling.

  Ellie was lost and Peanut damn well knew it. “I guess a margarita couldn’t hurt.” It was better than going home. The thought of telling Julia about the DNA was more than she could bear.

  ON EITHER SIDE OF RIVER ROAD, GIANT DOUGLAS FIR TREES WERE AN endless black saw blade of sharp tips and serrated edges. Overhead, the sky was cut into bite-sized pieces by treetops and mountain peaks. There were stars everywhere, some bright and so close you felt certain their light would reach down to the soggy earth, but when Ellie looked at her feet, there was only dark gravel beneath her.

  She giggled. For a second she’d almost expected to look down and see a black mist there.

  “Slow down,” Cal said, coming around the car. He took hold of Ellie’s arm, steadying her. />
  She couldn’t seem to stop looking at the sky. Her head felt heavy; so, too, her eyelids. “You see the Big Dipper?” It was directly to the left and above her house. “My dad used to say that God used it to pour magic down our chimney.” Her voice cracked on that. The memory surprised her. She hadn’t had time to raise her shield. “This is why I don’t drink.”

  Cal put an arm around her. “I thought you didn’t drink because of the senior prom. Remember when you puked on Principal Haley?”

  “I need new friends,” Ellie muttered. She let herself be guided into the house, where the dogs rammed into her so hard she almost fell again.

  “Jake! Elwood!” She bent down and hugged them, letting them lick her cheek until it was so wet it felt like she’d been swimming.

  “You need to train those dogs,” Cal said, stepping away from their sniffing noses.

  “Training anything with a penis is impossible.” She grinned at him. “And you thought I didn’t learn anything from my marriages.” She pointed to the stairs. “Upstairs, boys. I’ll be right up.”

  She only had to say it another fifteen times before they obeyed. Once the dogs were gone, Cal said, “You better get to bed.”

  “I’m sick of sleeping alone. Pretend I didn’t say that.” She started to pull away from Cal, then stopped dead. “Did you hear that? Someone’s playing the piano. ‘Delta Dawn.’” She started singing. “‘Delta Dawn, what’s that flower you have on?’” She danced across the room.

  “No one is playing music,” Cal said. He glanced over at the corner, where her mom’s old piano sat, gathering dust. “That’s the song you sang tonight for karaoke. One of them, anyway.”

  Ellie came to an unsteady stop and looked at Cal. “I’m the chief of police.”

  “Yes.”

  “I got drunk on margaritas and sang karaoke . . . in public. In my uniform.”

  Cal was trying not to smile. “Look at the bright side, you didn’t strip and you didn’t drive home.”

  She covered her eyes with her hand. “That’s my bright side? I didn’t get naked or commit a crime.”

  “Well . . . there was that time—”

  “I am definitely making new friends. You can go home. I won’t be seeing you anymore.” She turned away from him too quickly, lost her balance, and went down like a tree at harvest time. The only thing missing was a cry of “Timber!”

  “Wow. You really hit hard.”

  She rolled over and lay there. “Are you going to just stand there or are you going to hook me up to some sort of pulley system and get me up?”

  Cal was openly smiling now. “I’m going to stand here. Us not being friends anymore, and all.”

  “Oh, damn it. We’re back on.” She reached up. He took her hand and helped her to her feet. “That hurt,” she said, brushing dust off her pants.

  “It looked like it did.”

  Cal was still holding her hand. She turned to him. “It’s okay, big brother. I’m not going to fall again.”

  “Sure?”

  “Semi-sure.” She pulled free. “Thanks for driving me home. See you back at the station at eight sharp. The DNA will find a match. I feel it in my blood.”

  “That might be tequila.”

  “Naysayer. ’Night.” She lurched toward the stairs, grabbing the handrail just as she started to fall.

  Cal was beside her in an instant.

  “Hey.” She frowned, feeling his hold on her forearm. “I thought you left.”

  “I’m right here.”

  She looked at him. With her on the stair and him on the floor, they were eye-to-eye and so close she could see where he’d nicked himself shaving that morning. She noticed the jagged scar along his jawline. He’d gotten that the summer he turned twelve. His dad had come after him with a broken beer bottle. It was Ellie’s dad who’d gotten him to the hospital.

  “How come you’re so good to me, Cal? I was crappy to you in high school.” It was true. Once she’d sprouted boobs, plucked her eyebrows, and outgrown her acne, everything had changed. Boys had noticed her, even the football players. She’d left Cal behind in the blink of an eye, and yet he’d never made her feel bad about it.

  “Old habits die hard, I guess.”

  She backed up one step. It was just enough to put some distance between them. “How come you never drink with us?”

  “I drink.”

  “I know. I said with us.”

  “Someone has to drive you home.”

  “But it’s always you. Doesn’t Lisa care that we keep you out all night?”

  He was looking at her closely. “I told you: she’s gone this weekend.”

  “She’s always gone.”

  He didn’t answer. After a minute she’d forgotten what they were talking about.

  And suddenly she was thinking about the girl again, and failure. “I won’t find her family, will I?”

  “You’ve always found a way to get what you want, El. That was never your problem.”

  “Oh? What is my problem, then?”

  “You always wanted the wrong things.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  He seemed disappointed by that. Like he’d wanted her to say something else. She couldn’t imagine how she’d let him down, but somehow she had. If she were sober, she’d probably know the answer.

  “You’re welcome. You want me to pick you up tomorrow morning?”

  “No need. I’ll get Jules or Peanut to give me a ride.”

  “Okay. See you.”

  “See you.”

  She watched him walk away, close the front door behind him.

  The house fell silent again. With a sigh, she navigated the narrow, too-steep stairway and emerged onto the second floor. She meant to turn left, to her parents’—now her—bedroom, but her mind was on autopilot and steered her right into her old room. It wasn’t until she saw that both twin beds were full that she realized she’d made a wrong turn.

  The girl was awake and watching her. She’d been asleep when the door opened, Ellie was certain of it. “Hello, little one,” she whispered, flinching when she heard the low, answering growl.

  “I would never hurt you,” she said, backing toward the door. “I only wanted to help. I wish . . .”

  What did she wish? She didn’t know. When she thought about it, that was the problem with her life, now and always; she’d never known what to wish for until it was too late.

  She wanted to promise that they’d find the girl’s family, but she didn’t believe it. Not anymore.

  LIKE A RIVERBANK IN A SPRING THAW, THE EROSION OF JULIA’S SELF-CONFIDENCE was a steady, plucking movement. No instant of it could really be seen—no giant chunks of earth fell away—but the end result was a change in the course of things, a new direction. More and more, she found herself retreating to the safe world of her notes. There, on those thin blue lines, she analyzed everything. While she still believed that Alice understood at least at the toddler level—a few words, here and there—she was making no real progress in getting the girl to speak. The authorities were breathing down her neck. Every day, Dr. Kletch left a message on the machine. It was always the same. You’re not helping this child enough, Dr. Cates. Let us step in.

  This afternoon, when she’d put Alice down for her nap, Julia had knelt by the bed, stroking the girl’s soft black hair, patting her back, thinking, How can I help you?

  She’d felt the sting of tears in her eyes; before she knew it, they were falling freely down her cheeks.

  She’d had to go to the bathroom and redo her makeup for the press conference. She’d only just finished her mascara when a car drove up outside. She was halfway down the stairs when she ran into Ellie, coming up.

  “You okay?” Ellie asked, frowning.

  “I’m fine. She’s asleep.”

  “Well. Peanut’s waiting in the car. I’ll stay here today.”

  Julia nodded. She grabbed her briefcase and left the house.

  They drove the mile and a half to town in a
heavy rain. The drops on the windshield and roof were so loud that conversation was impossible. Rain seemed to be boiling on the hood.

  While Peanut parked the car, Julia opened an umbrella and ran for the station. She was hanging up her coat and walking to the podium when it struck her.

  Every seat was empty.

  No one had come.

  Cal sat at the dispatch desk, looking at her with pity.

  She glanced at the clock. The press conference should have started five minutes ago. “Maybe—”

  The door burst open. Peanut stood there, wearing her department issue slicker, rain dripping down her face. “Where the hell is everyone?”

  “No one showed,” Cal said.

  Peanut’s fleshy face seemed to fall at that. Her eyes rounded, first in understanding, then in resignation. She went over to where Cal stood and tucked in close to him. He took hold of her hand. “This is bad.”

  “Very bad,” Julia agreed.

  For the next thirty minutes they waited in terrible silence, jumping every time the phone rang. By 4:45 no one could pretend that it wasn’t over.

  Julia stood. “I need to get back, Peanut. Alice will be waking up soon.” She reached for her briefcase and followed Peanut into the car.

  Outside, the rain had stopped. The sky looked gray and bruised. Exactly how she felt. She knew she should made small talk with Peanut, at least answer her endless string of questions, but she didn’t feel like it.

  Peanut turned onto Main Street. After a quick “Aha!” she pulled into one of the slanted parking stalls in front of the Rain Drop Diner. “I promised Cal I’d get him dinner. It’ll only take a jiff.” She was gone before Julia could answer.

  Julia got out of the car. She’d intended to get herself a cup of coffee, but now that she was here, she couldn’t seem to move. Across the street was Sealth Park. It was where Alice had first appeared. The maple tree, now bare, sent empty branches reaching for the darkening sky. The forest in the distance was too dark to see.

  How long were you out there?

  Julia felt someone beside her. She pulled her thoughts back to the now and turned, expecting to see Peanut’s smiling face.