Matthew’s nostrils flare with his exhale, and he swipes his sudsy rag across the top of the car. “If only she’d asked me to drive her. I’d have driven her six inches if it meant she was with someone. A girl in Lydia’s condition shouldn’t be left alone.”
My stomach pitches, and I brace myself against the hot car. “Matthew, do you mean . . .” Tears swell inside me. “Does that mean . . . ?”
Matthew pauses. Waits.
“Do you not know where she is?” Emotion pulses with every syllable.
“’Course I don’t, Miss Sail.” It’s the first time I’ve ever heard Matthew sound offended. “You can’t honestly think I’d have anything to do with this.”
“I thought . . . I mean, Lydia told me that . . .” My inhales and exhales are involuntary bursts, as if I ran to the LeVines’ house. “I had hoped that maybe you and Lydia had . . .”
His expression is like a giant question mark.
“Run off together.”
“Miss Sail . . .” Red splotches bloom on Matthew’s cheeks. “I’m . . . I’m flattered, I suppose. But you can’t possibly think your Miss LeVine would have any interest in a fella like me.”
“But she told me she was going to tell you.” My words are coming out high and gaspy again.
Matthew’s eyes are trained on the hood of the car. “Tell me what?”
“That she loves you.”
A muscle in his jaw ticks. “No disrespect intended, Miss, but I think you must be all balled up.”
“I’m not. Lydia loves you. When she left my house yesterday, she said she was coming home to tell you. I watched her walk through the gate.”
Matthew looks at me, mouth downturned and eyes brimming. He looks as though he pities me. “She must have been teasing you.”
“Lydia doesn’t believe in teasing.”
“Then it must’ve been a misunderstanding.”
“It wasn’t a misunderstanding.” I stomp my foot. “If she’s not with you, Matthew, then where is she? Where is she?”
Walter is here, his thick arms around me, holding me back. “It’s okay, Pippy.”
“She didn’t tell him.” My words are a blubbery mess against the shirt I bought only yesterday. “She never told him. They’re not together, she’s just . . . gone.”
My mind plays out ugly scenarios—Lydia snatched from the street. Lydia crying for help, calling for me, but I’m oblivious inside my house. Lydia terrified and unable to fight off her captors.
“I’m sorry I made things worse.” Matthew’s words are hoarse.
Walter’s arms gather me against him and squeeze. “Piper was holding on to hope.”
“We’re all trying to. I’m sorry, Miss Sail.” Through my blurred eyes, I find Matthew regarding me with more emotion than I thought him capable. “I’m sorry I didn’t keep her safe.”
At that, his chin trembles, and he busies himself with the bucket of suds.
“Let’s get you home,” Walter murmurs as he guides me up the alley.
“She’s out there, Walter. We have to find her.”
“Lots of people are looking.” Walter’s words are low and soothing. “They’re doing their best.”
But what if their best isn’t enough?
CHAPTER
FIVE
Piper?” Joyce stands in the doorway of the living room. Her pale blue work dress has damp patches from washing dinner dishes and she holds a rag in her hand. “Jeremiah Crane is on the phone for you.”
Walter stops digging through the box of screws and Nick’s heel stops tapping against the floor.
“Can you tell him I’m not available to speak right now? That I’ll ring him tomorrow?”
“Of course.” Joyce’s footsteps whisper down the hall, back to Father’s office.
“What’s he calling for?”
I open my mouth to answer Walter.
“He’s keen on her.” Nick taps his pipe against the desk. “He called earlier too.”
I almost say he’s not keen on me, but then I recall this afternoon’s invitation to the movies. The memory is foggy, as if perhaps it was only a dream.
I press my fountain pen to the page of my notebook. Lydia watched Cole for the Barrow family during the last month because their nanny left to work at John Barleycorn. She once told me that she didn’t like being there if it was just Mr. Barrow, because—
“How can you study at a time like this?” Nick’s voice is filled with disgust as he folds shut the newspaper. “I haven’t been able to get a blasted thing done all afternoon, I’m so worried.”
“I’m not studying. And sitting there, smoking your pipe, and staring at the paper won’t bring Lydia home.”
I tap my pen a few times. What were Lydia’s exact words about Mr. Barrow?
She was “unsettled in his presence,” she once said to me, and she mused that maybe that was why their nanny had quit. That it was better to be a waitress at a speakeasy, where being flirted with is a known part of the job.
“Piper, what are you working on?” Walter’s voice sounds nervous, as if he already knows the answer to his question.
“One second.” I finish my thought about possible motives for Mr. Barrow—could Lydia have learned something about him that he didn’t like?—and then look up. “I’m writing down anything about Lydia that seems like it could be important. Things Lydia said or reasons others might have had a grudge against her or the family. That sort of thing.”
This is met with silence. Nick’s mouth hangs open slightly and Walter seems to have forgotten he was in the middle of finding a screw to repair the leg of the end table.
“When I’m done, I’ll give it to the detectives, and hopefully it’ll help them.” I poise my pen above the page and consider the next name.
“Piper . . .” Walter sets down the box of screws. “I know it’s hard to wait, but I think you should just let the detectives do their work.”
“I’m letting them do their work.” My pen flows in smooth letters across the line, emitting the comforting smell of ink. “They felt it necessary to question me, and Detective Cassano gave me their card. I’m just answering his questions more thoroughly.”
Matthew has been the LeVine family’s chauffeur for over a year—
“Where do you think she is?” Nick’s voice is a notch above a whisper.
I look at my brother, his blond hair tousled from his hat. Behind his spectacles, his eyes, blue like Father’s, spark with fear. I think of the way he had been looking at Lydia these last few months. It had been similar to how Lydia had looked at Matthew.
“I don’t know,” I say.
What if Nick had discovered how Lydia felt about Matthew? What if yesterday, instead of heading to school like he said, he had lingered outside and listened to our conversation? And what if he had decided to wait around the corner for Lydia to try and talk to her? Only it didn’t go well, and his hurt and jealousy made him—
No. This is my brother. He cares about Lydia. Yes, he’s temperamental and big-headed, but violent? No way.
“Where are you going?” Walter asks as I stand. The screw he’d been holding clatters back into the box.
“I’m going to use the telephone in Father’s office. I’ll be right back.”
Father used to spend most evenings at his desk, reviewing cases as he enjoyed a glass of scotch. But nine months ago, when he met the new-to-town court reporter, Jane Miller, all that changed. Now the cherry wood desk is frequently empty at night, and the framed portrait of Mother sits in the dark unless Joyce comes in to answer the telephone.
I close Father’s office door with a click. The room smells of tobacco and neglect, and the only sound in the office is the clock, ticking away seconds with frightening speed. Lydia’s absence has done peculiar things to my perception of time. In my heart, she’s been missing for an eternity, and minutes are being siphoned away far too rapidly.
I pull Detective Cassano’s card from the pocket of my skirt. I hold the earpiece in my left hand and mov
e a trembling finger to dial the first number. There’s no need to be nervous. I’ll just be leaving a message asking him to please telephone me tomorrow.
“Detective division.” The female voice is abrupt and nasally.
“Hi. I’d like to leave a message for either Detective Cassano or O’Malley, please.”
“One moment.”
In the silence, I stare at my page, at the black dot where I started to write my brother’s name. It looks like an ordinary blot of ink, but I know better. How could I ever write my own brother’s name in here? What if he saw?
“Cassano.”
I blink at the notebook, at the blot of ink. He’s still at work?
“Hello?”
“Yes, hi, detective. This is Piper Sail. We spoke earlier at Presley’s about my friend Lydia LeVine, who—”
“I know who you are, Miss Sail.”
“Oh, okay.” I look at my notebook, at the list of people and their stories. A list of people whom Lydia loves.
“Is there something you need, Miss Sail?”
“Yes, actually. When we spoke at the school earlier, I wasn’t much help. It was the shock of the news, I suppose.”
“That’s very common.” Detective Cassano’s voice has a gentle quality to it, and it calls to mind the way he held my hand steady at school. “It’s why I carry cards with me, because it’s hard to think logically in the face of news like that.”
I glance at my notes again. Do any of the stories even make sense? Do any of them matter?
“I wondered if you or Detective O’Malley had any time tomorrow to meet me. I spent some time thinking through everyone Lydia interacts with, and I made some notes that may be helpful. I could come to the station if that’s more convenient.”
“That won’t be necessary. We’re meeting with Dr. and Mrs. LeVine tomorrow afternoon, and it would be easy to stop by your place as well. Say around three o’clock? Or will you still be at school?”
My eyes slide shut. That’s so far from now. “Three o’ clock is fine. Thank you.”
“I hear hesitancy in your voice, Miss Sail. Has something important come up?”
“No, I just . . . I hate waiting.” Tears reduce my voice to a scratchy whisper. “I’m so afraid for her. She would never take off on her own like this.”
“We’re going to do everything we can to get Miss LeVine back home with you and her family.”
“Detective Cassano . . .” I trace the blotter on Father’s desk. “Please be honest with me. You said these situations are frequently nothing. How often is that true?”
His silence pushes my tears over the rims of my eyes.
“You seem to be a very intelligent young woman, Miss Sail.” His words are husky and low. “And with your father’s profession, I’m sure you’re not ignorant of the crimes that occur in our city.”
He knows what my father does? I bite down on my lip in an effort to stop my chin from trembling.
“But missing girls frequently have just run off with a beau or for effect, so—”
“But Matthew is here, and Lydia never would have run away on her own. She just wouldn’t.”
“Even so, it’s still possible she’s alive and well.”
“If Lydia were able to, she would call. She would know we were worried about her.”
Detective Cassano seems to hesitate. “By ‘alive and well,’ I don’t necessarily mean that she would be free to call home. She could still have been taken and just not be able to call.”
“Oh. If a girl is taken, where are you most likely to find her?”
My question is met with silence. “I’ll be blunt, Miss Sail. I’m uncomfortable talking about this with a young lady.”
I huff out an impatient breath. “You’ll have to get over that, detective, because I care much more about finding my friend than I do your comfort.”
“If I thought there was a benefit to telling you”—there seems to be a smile in his words—“then I would. But you knowing the possibilities of where Lydia might be won’t help get her home. Just know that we’re checking everywhere we can think of.”
Despite how Detective Cassano seems amused by me, I don’t think I’ll be able to convince him these are details I should be privy to. But there are other questions he might answer. “Have you talked to our neighbors? Did anyone see her?”
“We’ve talked to most.”
“Did anyone see her?”
He hesitates. “Miss Sail . . .”
“Why don’t you call me Piper?” I poise my pen above my notepad. “Who have you not talked to? In the morning, I could talk to them, and then when we meet tomorrow afternoon, I could tell you if I’ve learned anything.”
“Miss Sail—”
“Piper.”
Another hesitation. “Piper, I admire your tenacity. And Miss LeVine is a lucky girl to have a friend like you. We don’t know exactly what happened to her, but . . . the evidence suggests she didn’t simply run away from home—”
“Of course not. I told you, Lydia would never do that.”
“Right. So, with that in mind, can you see why I might not want to send you knocking on doors?”
“I can help.” I want my voice to sound strong, but my words bleed with desperation. “I really can. Lydia’s been my best friend since we were toddlers. I know how she thinks and I know who she knows. I can be helpful.”
Detective Cassano exhales long and slow. “I get how hard it is to sit and wait. And, after talking to your headmistress today, I have no doubt that you would knock on doors or even take the L to the shadiest neighborhoods to look for her there. So while I really appreciate your spirit, and while I look forward to meeting with you tomorrow and going over your notes, it doesn’t seem very safe to have you do anything more.”
I feel myself flushing. What all did Headmistress Robinson tell them about me? “I’m many things, Detective Cassano. But safe isn’t one of them.”
There seems to be a tinge of amusement in his voice when he says, “I’ll see you tomorrow at three, Miss Sail.”
I awake the next morning to bright sunshine streaming into my room. My eyes are raw and crusted, and my lips chapped after a night of weeping.
At two this morning, I had dragged myself down to the kitchen for a glass of water. The memory of what I’d seen when I went downstairs makes me shudder even now. Father had been asleep in his armchair, an empty tumbler in his lap and a shotgun propped beside him. The gun froze me on the bottom stair, made my blood roar through my veins. Guns have always unnerved me. (“Good,” my father once said when I told him this. “Then stay away from them.”)
I couldn’t take my eyes off the firearm. Why was it out? Why was his chair angled toward the front door?
I crept to his chair, careful to avoid the side with the gun, and removed the tumbler from his limp hand. I draped an afghan over him and carried his empty glass to the kitchen. Just the smell of the strong liquor burned my throat.
As I rinsed it, my mind wouldn’t let go of the gun. Lydia being gone had us all on edge. Is that what this was?
“What are you doing up?”
Walter’s voice drew a yelp out of me. He filled the doorway of the kitchen staircase, the one that led to Joyce’s living quarters. He wore striped pajamas, and his curls were rumpled, but he seemed too alert to have been awakened by me.
“You scared me.”
“Sorry.” He studied my face a moment. “You look like you haven’t slept at all.”
I combed my fingers through my hair. “Probably because I haven’t.”
“Want to get some air?”
“Sure.”
Walter pulled a flannel blanket from the linen closet and draped it around my shoulders once we’d settled onto the back stoop. We sat in silence for a while, the rhythm of breathing and the comfort of being with a friend lulling me like a bedtime song.
I yawned. “I could sleep, I think, but somehow it feels wrong. Like I have no right to be comfortable in my bed when Lydia
isn’t in hers.”
“Doesn’t help her any for you to lose sleep.”
“I know it’s senseless. But I’m a girl.”
“You’re not the senseless type, though. And don’t change that.”
We fell silent again, and my mind drifted to the notebook sitting up on my desk, the one I intended to give to Detective Cassano. In the last hour, my writings had started to sound like those of a lunatic. I had gone so far as to brainstorm reasons why my future stepmother or Ms. Underhill might have taken Lydia.
“Oh, Walter, where is she?” Tears brewed from exhaustion and anxiety dripped from my eyes. “The detective said it looks like she didn’t just run away, but who would have taken her?”
He coaxed me against his shoulder. “I don’t know. But it makes me never want to let you or Mother out of my sight again.”
The scenario that had plagued my thoughts all night long finally emerged. “What if someone did take her and she has a seizure?”
Walter’s breath caught, and I knew he too was thinking of the Other Lydia. Lydia with the rolled-back eyes, absent mind, and soiled skirts. “I don’t know.”
“Father’s asleep in the front room. He . . . he has his gun out.”
“He’s just nervous, is all. Eighteen-year-old girl goes missing from the neighborhood. Not only does he have an eighteen-year-old girl, but also a long list of criminal-types who he’s angered over the years.” Walter squeezed my shoulder. “Nothing for you to be worried about, though.”
Now as I stretch awake in the late-morning sun, last night’s conversation seems far away. Outside, birds hum merry songs and the lemon-yellow light declares that this is a beautiful late-spring morning. I should have been at school hours ago. Right now, I would be sitting in Ms. Underhill’s stupid class, making a dress that will never fit me right and suffering her distaste for me.
What I wouldn’t give to be living that day instead of this one.
My stomach groans with hunger. No surprise considering it’s after eleven, and I only picked at my supper last night. But instead of finding breakfast, I cross the room to my desk. The notebook sits where I left it before venturing downstairs. I rip out the last page, full of incoherent rambling, and review my other notes. A list of neighbors and their relationships with the LeVine family. A list of all the household staff I could remember, and who had been fired when and for what reason. A list of any members of the community whom Dr. and Mrs. LeVine didn’t seem to get along with (that list was the shortest by far), and another list of everything I could remember talking about recently with Lydia.
The Lost Girl of Astor Street Page 7