The Green And The Gray

3

They slept poorly that night. At least, Caroline slept poorly, and she assumed from the strained and mostly monosyllabic conversation between them the next morning that Roger hadn't done very well, either.

But at least they'd never gotten around to arguing about the play. That was something, anyway.

October was usually a quiet month in the real estate business, and this October had been no exception. Summer vacation rentals were only memories and bills, families with small children were firmly settled into the school year, and the Christmas bonuses that drew young couples' thoughts toward a nice co-op with a view were still two months away.

Which left Caroline plenty of time to think about the events of the previous evening. To think and to try to pick at the knots of the mystery in hopes of untangling them a little.

But all her efforts yielded nothing. She searched the local papers and Internet news sources for stories of urban violence that might connect with the bruises they'd seen on the girl's neck, but found nothing that matched both the crime and the girl's description. The man who'd left a streak of his blood on the strange gun also seemed to have slipped back into the shadows without any notice. She spent what seemed like hours on hold at the Missing Person's Bureau, only to come up empty on both the girl and the man.

She didn't talk to Roger at all that day. Sometimes he called her at lunch, but today she was so busy with the Internet that she never even noticed it was one-thirty until the twelve-thirty lunch shift swept back into the office. For an hour after that she worried about whether she should have called him, even if he hadn't called her, and spent the rest of the day sitting vaguely on pins and needles as she wondered if interrupting his afternoon would make things better or worse.

It was with considerable relief that she returned home that evening to find Roger not only not angry with her but already working on dinner.

"Hi, hon," he greeted her, giving her a distracted sort of kiss. "How was your day?"

"Slow," she said, hanging up her coat and returning to the kitchen. "Yours?"

"The same," he said, opening a can of tomatoes. "Judge Vasco is down with the flu, so the contractdispute argument I was putting together for Bill is on hold for at least a week. And Sam and Carleton are out in the wilds of corporate Delaware on some big rainmaking expedition."

"At least they're not running you off your feet like they usually do," she commented.

"Which was handy, given how much time I spent on hold with Missing Persons," he said a little sourly. "Turns out they don't have anyone on their books who matches the girl's description."

"I know," Caroline said, peering at the open recipe book and pulling a block of cheddar out of the fridge. "They don't have anything on the man, either."

He glanced at her, a flicker of surprise and perhaps even respect flashing across his face. "You called them too?"

She nodded. "I also checked the news sources to see if I could come up with any events that might link to the bruises on her throat. But there was nothing."

He grunted. "I took the subway up to 103rd at lunchtime and walked back along last night's route," he told her. "I couldn't get into the alley—the gate was locked—but I couldn't see an single thing that looked out of the ordinary."

Caroline selected a knife and started cutting slices of cheese. "It's like it never happened."

"Pretty much," Roger agreed. "I did hear one interesting tidbit, though. Seems there was a massive power outage up in Morningside Heights last night. The west part, over by Riverside Park."

Caroline frowned. "How far up?"

"Kelly said everything around his place on West 115th was completely dark." He paused. "Or at least it was after the big flash."

"Flash?"

"Yeah," Roger said. "Like all the streetlights blew at once, he said."

"Did ConEd have any explanation?"

"Just the usual bafflegab," Roger said. "Overloads, cable stress, squirrels in the wiring, or maybe the Broadway construction."

"You think that might have had something to do with our streetlight problem?" Caroline asked.

"I'd like to," Roger said. "But there are three problems. One, it doesn't sound anything like what we ran into, so I don't know how they could be related. Two, the Morningside outage happened nearly an hour before our lights did their magic trick. And three, there's still the problem of why the streetlights went out and not the power in the buildings themselves."

Caroline grimaced. "So we're back where we started," she said. "We've got a wild story without a single bit of proof. Except the gun," she corrected herself. "What did you do with it?"

"I put it in the junk drawer last night," he said. "Underneath your latch-hook stuff."

The latch-hook stuff she hadn't done anything with in years, she recalled, a brief flush of warmth rising into her cheeks. She should either pick up the hobby again or get rid of the trappings. "It's like one of those old ghost stories we used to tell around the campfire," she said. "You ever do that?"

"Nope," Roger said. "And if she was a ghost, she was a damn heavy one."

"Oh, they can be substantial enough," Caroline assured him. "I remember one story about a highschool guy who picked up a girl at a dance and lent her his sweater on the way home."

"Caroline—"

"Anyway," she said, ignoring the interruption, "the next day when he went to the house he'd dropped her off at—"

"Caroline!"

She broke off, startled at the harshness in his voice, shrinking automatically into herself. What had she done now?

Roger was staring into space, the muscles in his throat gone suddenly rigid. "Listen," he said softly.

She frowned, holding her breath and straining her ears.

And there it was. A quiet tapping sound coming from the direction of the living room.

The kind of sound made by knuckles rapping on glass.

"I think," Roger said, his voice sounding unnaturally casual, "we've got company."

He headed for the living room. Caroline looked for a moment at the knife in her hand, then set it down beside the block of cheese and followed.

She found Roger standing just inside the living room, gazing across at the balcony door. There, standing outside looking in at them, her slim figure framed by the darkening sky and the lights of the cityscape behind her, was the girl from last night, still wearing the same patchwork tunic and tights.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out in a whoosh, Roger crossed the room, popped the broomstick out of the rail, and slid back the door.

The girl ducked her head toward him in a sort of abbreviated bow. "May I come in?" she asked. Her voice was deep and throaty, with a slight accent Caroline couldn't place.

"Sure," Roger said, stepping to the side. "Unless you want to stay outside with the trees all night."

It seemed to Caroline that she gave Roger a sharp look at that. But with only that one moment of hesitation, she stepped inside. "Thank you," she said. "And thank you for helping me last night."

"It seemed the right thing to do," Caroline said, ungluing herself from the floor and moving forward as Roger closed the door and latched it. "I don't believe we've properly met," she added. "I'm Caroline Whittier. This is my husband, Roger."

"Hello," the girl said, ducking her head again. "I'm Melantha Gre—" She broke off abruptly.

Gre? "Green?" Caroline hazarded, glancing at the green-and-gray color scheme of her tunic.

The girl's lips compressed briefly. "Yes," she conceded.

"Melantha Green," Caroline repeated. It was, she decided, an attractive combination of the exotic and the down-to-earth. "That's a nice name. How old are you?"

"Twelve," Melantha said. "I'll be thirteen next May."

"I'll bet you're looking forward to becoming a teenager," Caroline commented. "Do you have any family?"

The girl sent a furtive glance back over her shoulder at Roger. "I'm really hungry," she said. "Do you have anything I could eat?"

So family wasn't a topic she wanted to talk about. Interesting. "Certainly," Caroline said, taking her hand and leading her back toward the kitchen. Her skin was cool, but not nearly as cold as it should have been if she'd been sitting out on the balcony all day. "The casserole's not ready, but I can get you something to tide you over. Do you like cheese?"

"Goat's cheese?" Melantha asked hopefully as they stepped into the kitchen.

"Sorry," Roger said from behind them. "Just plain old cow-brand cheddar."

"That's okay," Melantha said, eying the cheese hungrily as Caroline pulled out one of the two chairs at the small breakfast table and settled her into it.

"You can start with this," Caroline said, piling the slices she'd already cut onto a plate and setting it in front of her. "Would you like some milk or juice? We have orange and apple."

The girl had one of the slices in hand before the plate even hit the table. "Some apple, please?"

"Certainly," Caroline said, getting a glass out of the cabinet and turning toward the fridge. She had to make a quick sidestep around Roger, who was suddenly and inexplicably moving past her toward the table. "Tell me, why did you leave us last night?" she asked as she pulled out the bottle of juice.

"Do you have any bread?" Melantha asked.

"Sure," Roger said. He had settled in at the spot where Caroline had been cutting the cheese earlier, his back to the counter as he faced the girl. Keeping his eyes on her, he pulled open the bread drawer and snagged a bag of dinner rolls. "Why did you leave?" he asked as he handed them over.

For a half second Melantha looked up at him. Roger gave her a smile—a forced smile, Caroline could tell, but a smile nonetheless. "I was afraid," she said, dropping her gaze back to the table and undoing the twist tie on the rolls. "I heard voices."

"That was just the police," Roger told her. "They were here to help."

"Someone attacked you," Caroline said, carrying the glass of juice to the table. "Do you remember that? Someone tried to..."

She trailed off, staring at Melantha's throat. The dark bruises that had been there the night before were now barely visible. "Someone tried to strangle you," she continued slowly, touching the girl's throat gently with her fingertips.

Melantha twitched away from her touch. "I know," she said.

"Who did it?" Roger asked. "The man with the gun?"

"No," she said firmly. "He was... trying to help."

"Then who?" Roger demanded.

Melantha flinched. "I don't know."

Roger looked at Caroline. Liar, his expression said. "What about your family?" Caroline asked, deciding to try that approach again. "Is there someone we should contact, to tell them you're all right?"

A shiver ran through the girl. "No," she said, biting hungrily into one of the dinner rolls and following it with a mouthful of cheese.

Caroline looked at Roger. He shrugged microscopically; reluctantly, Caroline nodded agreement.

Whatever the girl knew, she wasn't ready to talk about it.

They watched in silence as Melantha finished off the rest of the sliced cheese and two more rolls.

"That was good," she said, draining her glass. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Caroline said. "Do you understand that we want to help you?"

Melantha stared down at her empty plate. "Yes," she said.

"Then tell us what happened," Caroline urged. "You can trust us."

Melantha's eyes were still on the empty plate, but Caroline could see her lips making uncertain little movements. As if she was trying to think, or about to cry. "Melantha?" she prompted.

"Because if you don't," Roger added, "we'll just have to call the police again."

It was probably the worst thing he could have said. Melantha's thin shoulders abruptly tightened, her wavering emotional barriers suddenly slamming up full strength again. "I'm real tired," she said, all the emotion abruptly gone from her voice. The barriers there had gone back up, too. "Is there someplace I could lie down for awhile?"

"Certainly," Caroline said, throwing a frustrated glare at Roger and getting a puzzled look in return.

Clearly, he didn't even realize what he'd done. "Would you prefer the couch or the bed?"

"The couch is fine," Melantha said, staggering slightly as she stood up. "No, that's okay—I can get there by myself," she added as Caroline took a step toward her. "Thank you."

She left the kitchen. A moment later, Caroline heard the faint but unmistakable sound of couch springs settling under a load. "Well, that was brilliant," she muttered to Roger, keeping her voice low. "Did it ever occur to you that it might have been the police she's afraid of?"

"So?" Roger countered, pitching his voice equally low. "You want to sugar-coat it, or you want to give her reality? If she doesn't let us help her, then she has to go to the police. Unless you want to throw her back out into the street."

"She's scared, Roger," Caroline said with exaggerated patience. "And you towering over her like that doesn't help any."

"Maybe not," Roger said, half turning and picking up the knife Caroline had been using to cut the cheese. "But it didn't seem smart to give her a clear shot at grabbing this."

"That's ridiculous," Caroline insisted. Still, she felt an unpleasant shiver run down her back as she eyed the knife. "She's the one who's in danger."

"Desperate people sometimes do desperate things," Roger reminded her, setting the knife back onto the counter. "Look, I know how gaga you get when there's an underdog involved—"

"That's not fair."

"—but the fact is that we don't know the first thing about this girl," Roger plowed on over her protest. "And even if she isn't a threat to us herself, she could still be putting us in danger just by being here."

He gestured toward the living room. "Like if whoever started that job decides to come by and finish it."

Caroline shook her head. "I think it has to do with her family," she said. "Domestic violence, probably from a father or stepfather."

Roger frowned. "How do you figure that?"

"That look she gave you in the living room, for one thing, when I first asked about her family,"

Caroline said. "She's nervous in your presence."

"Interesting theory," Roger murmured. "Problem is, she wasn't looking at me."

It was Caroline's turn to frown. "Are you sure?"

"Positive," he said. "Because at first I thought the same thing you did. What she was doing was making sure I'd locked the door, then doing a quick scan of the balcony itself."

"Of the balcony?"

Roger shrugged. "She came in that way," he pointed out. "If she can, why can't someone else? And don't forget our husky friend with the handy Broadway dimmer switch. If this is a case of family violence, we're talking one very weird family."

"You're right," Caroline sighed, conceding the point. "So what do we do?"

"Good question," Roger said, tracing a finger along the edge of the knife handle. "We can't call anyone; cops or Children and Family Services. She'd just disappear again. And we can't throw her out, either, not in the middle of the night."

"So she stays here?" Caroline asked.

"At least for tonight," he said, not sounding very happy about it. "Maybe tomorrow she'll be more willing to talk."

"And if she isn't?"

Roger exhaled noisily. "Let's just hope she is."

Dinner that evening was a quiet and rather strained affair, at least on Roger's part. He was fine when talking to Caroline about the details of her day, or discussing the latest political scandal from upstate.

But all his conversational gambits with Melantha fell as flat as last year's campaign promises. Maybe Caroline was right; maybe the girl was afraid of him.

Caroline did a little better. She was able to get Melantha talking about her hobbies, her favorite foods, and her taste in music. The first centered around painting and gardening; the second included Greek and Moroccan cuisine and any kind of seafood; the third ran to current preteen heart throbs, most of whom Roger had never heard of.

But all attempts to draw her out on what had happened the previous evening brought either silence or a quick change of topic.

Still, the girl was polite enough, and had the table manners of someone who'd been properly brought up. She was also quick to praise the simple macaroni-cheese-tomato casserole he and Caroline had thrown together.

Neither of which meant she might not murder them in their sleep, of course. As they loaded the plates into the dishwasher, he made a mental note to move the sharp knives into their bedroom before they turned in for the night.

Once the table was clear and they moved into the living room, things picked up a little. Caroline produced a deck of cards, and Melantha quickly joined into the games with an eagerness that for the first time made her seem like a genuine twelve-year-old.

But her strangeness continued to peek through. She used odd terms for some of the card combinations, and occasionally would make an exclamation in a foreign language Roger couldn't identify. Even more telling, after they had run through Caroline's repertoire of hearts, Crazy Eights, Go Fish, and Kings-in-the-Corner, Melantha taught them a new game, one neither he nor Caroline had ever heard of before.

Exuberant card player or not, though, she was clearly still running at half speed. At nine o'clock, as they watched her eyelids drooping, Caroline called a halt.

"Time for bed, Melantha," she said, collecting the cards and putting them back into their box. "We have to get up early for work, and you look like you could use a good night's sleep, too."

"Yes." Melantha hesitated. "I—maybe I'd better—I should probably go now."

"You'll do no such thing," Caroline said firmly, standing up and collecting the throw pillows from the couch. "Let me go get a sheet, some blankets, and a pillow and we'll set you up right here."

"Unless you'd rather we take you someplace," Roger suggested. "Do you have any family you could go to?"

Melantha lowered her eyes; and suddenly the relaxed, card-playing twelve-year-old was gone. "No," she said. "Not... no."

"Then it's settled," Caroline said cheerfully, as if she hadn't even noticed the awkward transition.

"Let me get that bedding and find you a toothbrush."

Fifteen minutes later, they had her settled in on the couch. Roger confirmed that the balcony door was locked and that the broomstick was in its groove and drew the curtains. "All safe and sound," he announced as Caroline turned out the lights. "Sleep well."

" 'Night," Melantha said, her voice already fading.

Caroline headed to the bedroom. Roger double-checked the locks on the front door, then followed.

"What do you think?" he asked as he closed the bedroom door behind them.

"She's scared, and she's on the run," Caroline said, pulling her nightshirt from beneath her pillow.

"And I still think it has something to do with her family."

"I think you're right," Roger agreed as he unbuttoned his shirt. "I'm not sure I buy the abuse angle, though. Aside from those bruises on her throat, she seems healthy and well cared-for."

"I suppose," Caroline said, sitting down on the edge of the bed and starting to pull off her shoes. She was tired, Roger could tell, far more tired than she should have been for nine-thirty on a Thursday night. This business with Melantha must really be getting to her. "Speaking of bruises," she added,

"did you notice they're almost gone?"

"Yeah, I did," Roger said. "Fast healer?"

"I don't know," Caroline sighed, pulling on her nightshirt. "So what do we do now?"

"You got me," he admitted. "All I can suggest is that we try the police again in the morning."

"She didn't want to see them last night," Caroline pointed out, making a face as she climbed under the comforter and blankets and hit the chilly sheets. "I doubt she'll want to see them tomorrow, either."

"Then she has to tell us what's going on," Roger said firmly. "She tells us, or she tells the cops."

"Or she does her disappearing act again."

"Maybe by morning she'll trust us a little more," Roger said, climbing into bed beside her. "Pleasant dreams."

"You, too," she said, rolling half over to give him a kiss.

He turned off the bedside light and nestled down under the comforter, shivering against the cold sheets. At least Caroline seemed to have forgiven him for whatever it was he'd done wrong earlier in the evening.

It had been a long twenty-four hours, and he was deathly tired. But perversely, sleep refused to come. He lay quietly beside Caroline, listening to her slow breathing, staring at the edges of the sliding door where the glow of the city seeped in around the light-blocking drapes. Over and over again he played back the incident in the alley, trying to remember every word the man had said, every nuance of his tone or body language, every unusual thing or event that had happened before or after he'd shoved that gun into Roger's hand. But the mystery remained as tangled as ever.

And it was way beyond people like him and Caroline. In the morning, he decided firmly, they would give Melantha one last chance to come clean; and after that it was the cops, whether she liked it or not. And as for her disappearing act, this time he would sit on the girl to make sure she stayed put.

Literally, if it came to that.

And then, from somewhere on the outside wall, he heard a soft thump.

He froze, straining his ears. Had he imagined the sound? Or could it have just been Melantha tossing in her sleep?

The sound came again. Definitely from the outside wall, and definitely near the bedroom door.

Someone was on their balcony.