The Lost Girl of Astor Street

by Stephanie Morrill

  The smells of sweat and strain fill my nostrils. My eyes slide closed, desperate for sleep. I think of Mariano, Father, Emma, Walter, Joyce, Tim, and Nick. I parade their faces in my mind’s eye. I have to get this necklace off. I have to give people a chance to find me.

  “Pat!” A new voice, masculine and panicked, bursts into the conversation. Gravel crunches—footsteps. Approaching fast. “Feds are here!”

  I don’t recognize the word Patrick Finnegan growls, but his footsteps race away from the car.

  Will Alana—Maeve?—take me out of the car now? Shoot me and dump my body wherever it is that we’re parked?

  I push again with my toes, straining upward, but still the chain holds strong.

  A door yanks open and slams shut. That must be Alana, right? The engine roars to life, and with a loud pop, the tires chew up gravel as we speed away. Each bump makes my bones rattle. The rear of the car fishtails from the high speeds on a poorly finished road.

  The car makes a sudden turn to the left, sending my body tumbling out of control.

  The snap of my chain is like music. The sound comes just before my head connects with the wall of the car.

  And then the world is gone again.

  An icy spray of water blasts my face. I try to suck in a breath, but there’s still a rag taped into my mouth, and all I manage to do is breathe water into my nose. My eyes snap open just in time to see someone grab hold of a corner of the tape and rip it off my mouth. My cheeks scream in protest, and the air feels so good in my lungs, they ache.

  “Emma!” I rasp out the word as the remnants of my dream—her yellow, flowered dress, the blood spreading outward—fade away.

  “Finally.” Alana towers over me, holding an empty glass. “I was starting to think you wouldn’t come around. You must’ve lost more blood than I thought.”

  I rest my thumping head against the tall side of a bathtub. I pull a delicious amount of air into my lungs and exhale again. The rush of oxygen is dizzying.

  Alana drags a wooden kitchen chair alongside the tub, like Mother would when bathing me as a child. “I took out the gag because I need answers from you. But I won’t hesitate to put it back in if you decide to yell.”

  The lukewarm water filling the bath soaks my dress and makes me shiver. “What happened”—my voice scratches against my throat—“to Lydia?”

  Alana’s smile is tinged with sadness. “I am sorry about her. It sounds like she was a swell girl. Your brother was clearly still hung up on her.”

  My heart bucks against Alana’s condolences, but my body is too weak to react as I want.

  “I observed her for a while, you know. I would’ve liked her, I’m sure.”

  I can hear Lydia’s voice in my head, confiding in me about her medicine. It makes me paranoid too. I kept thinking this black car was following me. Or like at the store yesterday. I was convinced that woman was listening to every word we said. Following me.

  The tall woman who had watched us buy Walter’s shirt and hat. I look at Alana, and it’s so clear. If only I had realized it sooner.

  “And I like you too, Piper. You think you’re smarter than everyone around you, but I wouldn’t sentence you to death for it.”

  “How thoughtful.”

  I’m not sure she hears my sarcasm above the roar of the water, but her smile has a wryness to it. “Would you like a drink? You’re probably thirsty.” She leans forward to dip the glass in the bathwater, which has been dyed pink from my blood.

  Sitting on top of the toilet tank is her silver gun.

  “I had to leave you in the car for longer than I wanted,” Alana says as she holds the glass against my mouth. “I needed it to be good and dark before I could bring you in, obviously. If I felt like I could trust you, I’d remove your bindings. We’ll see how forthcoming you are.”

  My need for water overrides my detestation of accepting something from her hand. The corners of my mouth ache from where the gag strained them, and the water feels like a balm for my dry tongue and aching throat.

  Far too soon, Alana pulls the glass away. She turns the faucet off, and then crosses one slender leg over the other. If she imagines she looks calm and glamorous, she’s mistaken. Her bob of hair is disheveled, her face white like paper, and her movements jerky, like a marionette in an unskilled hand.

  “I’ll make you a deal, Piper. You give me the answers I want, and you get to go home. Back to your dog, your petulant big brother, and your very cute cop boyfriend. He must be out of his mind with worry.”

  “I’m sure that’s a real concern to you.”

  “I’m not as cold as you might think. I’ve been in love before, can you believe that?” Alana reaches for the gun, and every aching muscle in my body goes taut.

  But she only tweaks it so the handle is angled toward her. “I would prefer to not use this, but if you decide to get loud, I won’t hesitate. And I wouldn’t aim to kill, not the first time, anyway. Just something to keep in mind.”

  I stare at it, seeing Emma’s body splayed on the floor, the blood soaking her dress. Has anyone found her yet? Is there any chance someone arrived in time to save her? Where is my locket? Still in the back of the car, or dare I hope that it fell out?

  “So do we have a deal? You answer my questions, and I don’t kill you. We all get what we want.”

  “How stupid do you think I am? You’ll never let me go. I know way too much.”

  “I don’t want to kill you, Piper—”

  A watery laugh wheezes out of me. “That’s not the song you were singing to Patrick Finnegan.”

  Alana’s eyes spark, and her lips purse. “I said what I had to so I could get the help I wanted. I think you’re familiar with that concept, Piper.”

  “You think I don’t realize you’re doing the same thing to me? Dangling my life like a carrot so that I’ll tell you what I know.”

  The smile on her face is broad and terrifying. “I knew you knew where Jacob went.”

  The victory in her words sends a shiver through my body. “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant that you’re trying to get me to share something that you think I know. Matthew, or Jacob—whoever he is—and I were never close. I have no reason to protect him.”

  “He said in his letter he would call.”

  “How many times do I have to say it?” My answer comes through chattering teeth. “He never called.”

  “I think you still have in your head that Jacob is the good guy, and I’m the bad. But I’m not. Not at all.”

  “You killed my best friend!” I try to scream it, but the words are a meager squawk. They don’t even echo off the yellowed bathroom tiles.

  “No, Jacob did.”

  “I don’t recall him kidnapping her. Do you?”

  Her mouth quirks. “Even now, you can’t resist being snotty, can you? Jacob’s letter to you was full of lies. Do you actually believe the man who lived next door to him just happened to be an undercover Prohibition agent? That the agent just happened to be ready and waiting for a pickup that Jacob was in charge of? That Jacob just happened to be one of the only people who didn’t get killed? Sounds like a lot of coincidences, don’t you think?”

  She leans above me, her face hard and her eyes full of such a dark intensity, I look away. “Well, his coincidences stole my life. Everything I’d worked for and loved—my husband, my baby. And so long as there’s breath in my body—and breath in his—I will make him pay.”

  Matthew had mentioned Alan’s widow in his letter, hadn’t he? By name, even. He had seen her in town after Lydia went missing, talking to Patrick Finnegan. Somehow, that detail had seemed inconsequential. The word widow had conjured up a mental picture of an older woman. Certainly not someone only a few years older than myself. Not someone who would have any motive to hurt Lydia.

  “And it doesn’t matter what collateral damage there is along the way, huh? The life of an innocent girl like Lydia is meaningless to you.”

  “Not at all. I’ll regret her d
eath every day of my life. I promise you that.”

  “Then why did you take her?” My voice sounds like it once did as a child, when I asked God the same thing about my mother. I needed her. Why did you take her? “Why did you kill her?”

  “Jacob was always cunning.” She sits upright in the chair, her eyes glassy. “Or so I was told by my father-in-law. That’s why the Burks hired him, of course. Never dreamed he’d double-cross them. The private investigators the family sent just couldn’t seem to track him down, but I knew I could. I cared more, for one thing. And also as a woman, there was information I could get that no man could.”

  Her smile has a camaraderie that sours my stomach. “I know you understand that, Piper. They underestimate us. And the smart girl uses it to her advantage.”

  “So you found him.”

  “After a long year of searching, yes, I did.” Pride shines in her eyes. “With all the women he burned through in Kansas City—they were quite helpful in locating him—I wasn’t at all surprised to find he was carrying on with his employer’s adolescent daughter. But to find he actually cared about the poor chit, and to see that she actually cared about him . . .” Her eyes glint, and her sorrow for what happened to Lydia seems to have evaporated. “I couldn’t pass up the chance to make him feel even a fraction of what I felt when he took Alan from me.”

  Alana’s sigh is heavy. “I regret it now, of course. By dallying with him, I missed my chance. I planned to return Lydia to her family the next day, only . . .” Again, she sighs. “She was dead that night when I came in to get her. After Lydia died, it was impossible to get close to him. There were reporters everywhere. I tried poisoning—figured better to get him from afar than not at all—but apparently, all I got was his cat. If only Lydia hadn’t died, everything would’ve gone to plan.”

  “She had seizures.” The words are watery, and I cough and shudder all at once. “She choked on her own vomit, thanks to you.”

  Alana regards me with a steady gaze. “I wish it hadn’t happened.” Her words are quiet, and yet somehow they seem to bounce all around the room. “Maybe my regret means nothing to you, but I hope you’re at least smart enough to see that Jacob is at the root of all this. That telling me where he went is the best thing you can do.”

  “But I don’t”—I cough and shiver—“know where he is.”

  Alana runs her fingers through her hair. Her hands tremble, or perhaps it only seems that way because my teeth chatter. “Come on, Piper, think. You rode in a car with the man for over a year. Where would he go?”

  I would go to California or Arizona. Someplace warm. “Maybe he left the country.”

  “I don’t need maybes.” Her words are a dark snarl, and she grasps the sides of the tub, leans down over me. “I can come up with maybes on my own. I’ve searched all over for leads. I even went back to his mother’s place in Arkansas. I need to know real places. I need to know where he called you from.”

  The words chatter out of me. “H-he didn’t c-call me.”

  Her face morphs before my eyes, that inhuman look again. Her hands are around my throat as she presses me down into the water. The water which had once felt like a balm now burns. My arms and legs seem to forget they’re bound; they press against the ropes, fighting for freedom. The world is splattered in black, and then I’m yanked back up. Air screams down my throat as water hacks its way out in an ugly cough.

  “I am not going back without him.” Alana’s words come through gritted teeth, and yet somehow are being screamed in my ears. “I’m not going back to having nothing. Not when I had everything—everything—and that man ripped it away.”

  Breathe in, breathe out. That’s all my body can manage to do right now. Breathe in, breathe out. There’s a pounding in my head, an ache over my whole body. I could be with Lydia and Mother. I could just let myself slip away.

  The pounding in my head is so loud, it seems audible. Like a knock on a door.

  And maybe it is, because Alana suddenly straightens. She looks back to me, her expression calculated rather than demonic, and she shoves the gag back into my mouth.

  “Our conversations seem to always get interrupted.”

  I sink against the edge of the tub and struggle to pull oxygen through my nose. In and out, in and out. Such an unconscious act until you find your airways blocked. In and out.

  “Don’t make a peep.” Her face is so close to mine, it blurs. “Or I swear by my Alan that you’ll regret it. We’ll just let them go away.”

  In and out. In and out. The world around me is speckled with stars, but I have to keep breathing. In and out.

  Another knock. “Police! Open up!”

  Mariano. My heart seems to sing the name.

  Alana’s panicked face, her darting eyes, are framed in ever-growing black. She grabs her gun and slinks out the bathroom door, leaving me alone. I try to swing my legs over the edge of the tub. At least try to get out, to do something besides breathe. But breathing is just so darn hard. In and out. In and . . . out. In . . . and . . .

  “Alana Kirkwood, we know you’re in here!”

  “Mariano!” I scream, but the word is tangled in the rag. I splash my feet, bang them against the edge of the tub. “Mariano!” I try again.

  And then, as if by magic, he’s there. Standing in the doorway with a gun leveled at me.

  He lowers it immediately. “Piper! Thank God.”

  Tears heat my eyes as Mariano rushes to the edge of the tub.

  He eases the rag from my mouth, and gives me a once-over. “What’d she do to you?” The horror on his face tells me that I look as terrible as I feel.

  Detective O’Malley’s broad frame fills the doorway.

  “Alana.” The words wheeze from my lungs. “She’s here. She has a gun.”

  O’Malley turns down the hall, holds his weapon steady.

  “You’re burning up, Piper.” Mariano’s hand is like ice on my forehead. “We have to get you to the hospital.”

  “Get Alana.” My mouth is so dry, it’s like talking through a mouthful of cotton. “She’s here. She . . .” The rush of oxygen has made me dizzy. There seem to be two of Mariano. “She has . . . She has a gun.”

  “We know. We’re getting her, Piper. You’re safe. Just relax. It’s all going to be okay.”

  And I find that, miraculously, I believe him.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The sunlight that filters through the stained glass windows of St. Chrysostom’s Episcopal Church is soft and pink. The casket on stage is open, but I don’t move from my spot on the front pew.

  I already know who I’ll find inside. Even from here, I can see the honey color of my hair. Can make out the profile I’ve seen countless times in my bathroom mirror.

  Lydia reaches for my hand. She presses her palm against mine, wordlessly, just as she did all those years ago when we stood by my mother’s grave.

  “It doesn’t feel so bad, does it?” I say.

  She turns to me. It’s clear that she’s not a mere mortal—she’s glorious, so bright that my eyes ache—yet somehow she still looks like herself. “You mean death?”

  I nod. “I thought it might hurt, but . . .” I shrug. “I feel just fine.”

  Lydia’s teeth gleam like pearls. “It’s splendid, actually. Like you’re finally whole. Finally perfect.”

  “I don’t feel particularly perfect, but—”

  Her laugh tinkles like a wind chime. “That’s because you’re not dead, dear Piper.”

  “Then what am I?”

  “You’re dreaming.”

  I stare at the casket. Empty. “How long do I get to stay here?”

  “I’m not sure.” Lydia shrugs. Her movements have a fluidity to them, rather than the labored grace she had on earth. “But you’ll wake up eventually.”

  A sigh leaks out of me. “And then what?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean, what am I supposed to do? All I’ve thought about since you wen
t missing is figuring out what happened to you. Now what am I supposed to do with my life?”

  “Whatever you like, of course.” She smirks. “Though I wouldn’t suggest anything that involves sewing.”

  I giggle. “Now there’s a disappointment.”

  “What did you want to do?”

  “You mean before you . . . you know.”

  Lydia laughs, the sound radiant and sweet. “You seriously think you’re going to offend me? I know I’m dead, Piper. You can say it. Yes, what did you want to do before I was dead? Go to a university, right?”

  “I don’t know. It sounded bold and smart at the time, but I don’t know.”

  “You wanted to find something that would help people. You didn’t want to be just a wife.”

  The pew seems to feel harder as we talk. “It all seems so pointless now.”

  “No, it isn’t. Giving away your life—helping people—is what will matter most in the end.”

  “I wanted to help you.”

  “I know you did, Piper.” Her tone is one of amused appreciation. Like when an adult thanks a toddler for helping with a household chore—they didn’t really help, but their effort was sweet. “However, only the living need help.”

  A headache creeps up the back of my neck. I move my arm to rub at it, and wince from the pain. “At the time, I thought you were the living. I hoped you were, anyway.”

  “I know.” Lydia’s voice has gone soft, and her image is nearly transparent. “But I’m okay. And you will be too.”

  A stab of pain hits my ribs. I’m waking up, I can feel it. “No! I’m not ready!”

  “You are.” Her voice is wispy, reassuring.

  “I’m not ready!” But my words only echo off the high ceiling of the church.

  She’s gone.

  Wherever I am, it’s nighttime. Gray moonlight casts long dark shadows on the walls. My mouth feels as though it’s filled with sand. The back of my head throbs, just like in my dream, and when I stir, pain blossoms all over my body.

  I wince as I turn my head to the right. There are several empty cots—hospital beds?—and a window that reveals the city is asleep.