False Mermaid

1

Karin Bledsoe pulled a cigarette from the crumpled pack she kept stashed in her purse and lit it, taking a long drag. She never smoked in bed when Rolf was home, but he was out at a trade show in Las Vegas. Or so he said. She took another drag. To hell with him. Bastard.

The phone on the bedside table began to vibrate, and the glowing number on the screen registered as somebody on the exchange at headquarters. It was the patrol supervisor from Central Division. Don Padgett’s voice sounded apologetic. “Sorry to call you at home, Karin. We’ve got a disturbance in the ER at Regions—”

“That’s your patch, Don. Since when doesn’t patrol handle a riot in the ER?”

“Since the person causing it is a detective. Your partner.”

“Frank?”

“His brother came in on a 911. I guess they did what they could, but—”

“Are you telling me Frank’s brother is dead?”

“That’s what I was told. That’s when he lost it.”

“I didn’t even know he had a brother.”

“Me neither. Anyway, I thought you might want to get down there. Things are up in the air—and he’s still got his weapon on him. Maybe you could talk to him.”

Karin Bledsoe flashed her badge at the ER desk, and followed the noise to the last curtained bay. Frank’s sister stood outside, weeping, comforted by her husband. Four uniformed cops were crouched close to the floor, trying to talk Frank out of the corner where he’d retreated. He sat on the floor, holding his brother’s body close, keeping one hand clamped tightly over the slack mouth. One of the uniforms, a sergeant, spoke into his radio: “Yeah, we’ve got a situation here. We’re going to need additional backup.” He saw Karin and came over to her side, never turning his back on Frank. “You’re his partner? Thanks for coming. I’m assuming Don filled you in—we need that weapon.”

She glanced in and saw the waffled grip of Frank’s service piece peeping from the fold in his jacket. It didn’t seem like he was going to use the gun, but it was an obstacle. Nobody could think straight with a loaded Glock as part of this equation. It could take them all down a road nobody wanted to travel.

Karin said: “Let me talk to him.” She edged into the curtained space, aware of anxious faces all around her. “Hey, Frank? It’s Karin.”

His eyes were open but he didn’t seem to see anything. He was somewhere else. So she hadn’t just been imagining things—he had been acting strange these past few days. She’d put that down to the return of Nora Gavin, but maybe there was more to it. “Frank, we need you to hand over your piece. I know you don’t want to put anybody in danger. As soon as you hand me the gun, we can talk this over, all right?”

He was like a frightened animal, kept trying to cover his brother’s mouth, turning his head as if he could hear things no one else around him could hear. His lips moved, repeating the same words over and over, in what seemed like a prayer. She edged closer, thinking she might be able to reach for the gun and slip it from the holster. Take it slow, she told herself. Tell him what you’re doing every step of the way.

“I’m going to come closer, and then I’m going to reach into your jacket for the gun. Is that all right, Frank?” All she could think was: This whole thing is seriously, seriously messed up.

“Santa María, Madre de Díos…” he droned in a dull whisper.

When she was within inches, he suddenly lashed out with both legs, knocking her over, and bringing all four uniforms down upon himself in the process. There was a wild scramble as they struggled to restrain him, one limb at a time. Karin had seen plenty of suspects fight, but Frank—even in this diminished state—was strong and difficult to subdue.

“I have it—I have the weapon,” the patrol sergeant said.

Karin scrambled to her feet as a couple of the uniforms sat on Frank and applied the cuffs. The other two lifted his brother’s crumpled body and gently set it on the gurney. Frank’s face was pressed hard into the floor. His tears streamed onto the shiny linoleum.

2

Nora awakened to a throbbing pain in her head. She lay back for a moment, and then began checking her limbs—everything moved, nothing broken, but she could feel nascent bruises on her chest and arms and knees. All her joints felt as if someone had tried to jolt them loose. She searched for the bump of a cell phone in her left pocket, then managed to work the thing out and flipped it open. No service—must be a dead spot, down here below the bluffs. Her head hurt like hell, but as long as nothing was fractured, it was time to make a move.

She released her seat belt and cracked open the car door, setting one foot tentatively on the steep ground outside. Moving slowly, she managed to slide from the car and stand, holding onto saplings and the rough ledges that protruded from the limestone. The noise of birdsong seemed to come from a great distance, and her head felt like a chiming clock tower.

The car was wedged between the trunks of two stout trees, evidently slowed in its wild ride by the undergrowth. She was lucky to have gone over at the point where she did, and not at some sheer drop-off over the water. Lucky as well, to have plowed between two trees, and not head on into one of them.

She dug into her right pocket, feeling for Cormac’s love knot—it was gone. Her memory flashed on the moment last night, as she scrabbled for the card to give Miranda. It must have fallen to the ground then. A cold panic clutched at her. She had to find the spot where she’d spoken to Miranda, and get it back. Then she remembered having to do something, to be somewhere, first thing in the morning. To meet the fisherman at the big tree that leaned out over the water, early. What time was it, anyway? How long had she been out? She looked toward the river, where a thick haze hung over the water’s surface. She couldn’t see more than ten feet in either direction through the mist. Was that the edge of a path up ahead?

A hand suddenly clamped across her mouth from behind. She could hear rustling deeper in the woods, and heard strange voices arguing in the woods above her.

“Skeeter, what the fuck, man—”

“I just went for a piss. I had to go.”

“I told you to stay there and not touch anything. Now she’s gone. Grab the stuff, and let’s get out of here.”

The person who held her was not large, but strong and wiry. At last the voices receded and the hand slid from her mouth. She turned to face the Cambodian fisherman. He spoke in a whisper. “You okay? Need doctor?” He pointed to her head.

“I have to find my love knot. I can’t lose it.” Feeling as though she was going to pass out again, Nora reached for the fisherman’s sleeve. “Please help me.”

3

At the Emergency Room, Nora opened her eyes to find an unfamiliar figure sitting in the chair beside her. She must be dreaming—this couldn’t be real. Hanging above her, she saw an IV dripping clear liquid. All right, so maybe it wasn’t a dream.

Fragments of the previous night started coming back to her. Talking to Miranda at the river, the crash. After that, everything was a little hazy. They must have given her something. She struggled to prop herself up.

The figure in the chair sat forward. The fisherman held a small plastic tackle box on his lap. “You okay?”

“Why did you want me to meet you at the river? You were going to tell me about my sister—I’m sorry, I don’t have her picture anymore.”

He pushed his tackle box toward her. “You look.”

Nora took the box and opened the lid. Inside were all the same sorts of useless treasures she had saved as a child: an orange plastic keychain in the shape of a crab, a rusty ball-bearing, a brass key gone to green, assorted marbles and coins. Collected like this, they seemed not like useless junk, but amulets or jujus, objects that carried a powerful spiritual charge. What was it he wanted her to look for? She pulled out a weathered scrap of paper with block letters in blue ballpoint: I know what you did. Hidden Falls 11 pm tonite. A smudge of something that looked like blood marked the corner of the paper. She set the note aside and kept searching. At the bottom of the box, her fingers crossed a rubbery surface. She parted the jumble to find a Nokia cell phone, the same model as Tríona’s missing mobile. No wonder they hadn’t found it in the crime scene evidence. All at once, she saw Tríona running for her life through the underbrush, trying to call for help, dropping the phone as she fled. She imagined herself in the hotel lobby that night, calling and calling, while this phone lay useless amid dead leaves.

She reached out for the fisherman, seizing his shirtsleeve. “Where did you get this? I mean, where exactly did it come from—do you remember?”

He backed away, alarmed. “At river. All from river.”

Nora let go of his sleeve. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—” Her gaze caught on a faded color photo taped inside the tackle box lid. A father, mother, children. “Is this your family?”

He nodded. “In Cambodia—before.”

Nora struggled to focus on their faces: the bespectacled father, mother in a white blouse and dark skirt, and four boys, lined up eldest to youngest, mugging for the camera. All apparently unaware of the terrible wave that was about to catch them. “Which is you?”

He pointed to the youngest boy, with the biggest ears and the widest grin. She peered closer and noticed the stethoscope slung around the father’s neck. “Your father was a doctor?”

She looked up, recognizing the guarded, hollow look in his eyes. He must have been only a child when the Khmer Rouge came to power. When the killing started. “I’m sorry—” She struggled to think what else to say. “You’ve been so kind, and I don’t even know your name.”

“Sotharith.”

Nora threw off her blanket and sat up at the edge of the gurney. Sotharith looked alarmed. “I can’t stay here,” she said. “I’ve got to go. Do you know what happened to my cell phone?”

He handed over a bag evidently containing her personal items. Nora dug for her phone and quickly checked for messages. Still nothing from Frank.

A nurse pulled back the curtain and strode over to the bed, checking the IV and monitor in a single glance. “So—how are we doing here?” When Nora didn’t respond, she spoke sotto voce to Sotharith. “I’m sorry, sir, you’ll have to go back to the waiting area now.” She pointed to the large double doors outside in the hall. “We’ll let you know when your friend is ready to be discharged.”

Sotharith backed out of the room with the tackle box pressed to his chest. When the nurse’s back was turned, Nora managed to tuck the note and the two phones under her pillow. She spoke to Sotharith over the nurse’s shoulder. “Don’t leave, please. I’ll come out to you as soon as I can—” The door swung open, and he was gone.

The nurse spoke again, nodding toward someone standing outside the curtain. “The police are here to take your statement, Dr. Gavin.”

Nora looked up to see whether they’d sent a patrol officer or a detective to take her statement. The one person she didn’t expect was Frank’s partner, Karin Bledsoe.

“Hello, Dr. Gavin. The ER docs said you kept telling them the crash wasn’t an accident.”

Nora tried to keep her voice calm. “It wasn’t. Somebody jammed the brakes in my car.”

“And who would have any reason to do that?”

“The same man who murdered my sister—Peter Hallett.”

She walked Karin Bledsoe through the events of the previous night, from the time she arrived at Peter’s house to the time she woke up in the ER this morning. There were a few gaps, of course.

Karin Bledsoe listened, and jotted down a few notes. “Do you mind telling me what you were doing parked outside Mr. Hallett’s residence?” she asked.

Nora took that question—and the skeptical look that accompanied it—to mean that Karin Bledsoe had run her name through the computer and come up with the restraining order Peter had filed against her four years ago. Once again, she was coming across as the lunatic stalker, and Peter Hallett as long-suffering victim. “If you just look at my car, you’ll see that somebody jammed the brakes—”

“We checked the vehicle. There was a water bottle rolling around on the driver’s side floor. Is it possible that your own bottle accidentally got stuck under the pedal?”

“It was in the cup holder.”

“And you didn’t notice it missing when you returned to the car?”

“I can’t remember—I wasn’t thinking about water bottles. I was thinking about the person who murdered my sister. What about all those runners and dog walkers along the river road? One of them could have seen something—”

“We’ve got officers working on that. We’ll let you know.”

“And in the meantime, Peter Hallett is about to leave the country tomorrow. I really need to speak to Frank. He doesn’t answer his phone. Could you let him know that I need to talk to him? Please—it’s important.”

“I can pass along a message—but I can’t promise that he’ll get back to you right away.”

“Why—what’s happened to him? Where is he?”

“Detective Cordova is on leave. That’s really all I can say… Thanks for your statement, Dr. Gavin. Here’s my number—” She handed Nora a card. “Call me if you think of anything else, or if you need anything. We’ll be in touch again soon.”

When Karin Bledsoe closed her notebook and stepped away, Nora knew she was on her own. Did the woman seriously think she would drive off an embankment and crash a car, just to implicate Peter Hallett? How could she be sure that Karin Bledsoe would send someone to Peter’s house, check on his movements last night?

Just then, a familiar voice cut through the chaotic noise of the ER. “She’s here, Tom.” Eleanor Gavin pushed back the curtain, taking in the bandage on Nora’s head, the bruises, the IV drip. “Oh, Nora—we’ve been trying to find you all night. We didn’t know where you were.”

Her father stood at the foot of the bed, lack of sleep evident in the dark circles beneath his eyes. “What’s happened, Nora?”

She couldn’t tell them the car wreck wasn’t an accident. “It was stupid—I took a curve too fast, went off the road. I’m all right, really. Nothing broken—just a few bruises. Why were you trying to find me?”

Eleanor Gavin broke down. “Oh, Nora—”

“What is it, Mam? What’s wrong?”

“She’s gone, Nora. Elizabeth’s gone. Peter’s taken her. We were going to go away, the three of us—”

“What happened, Mam?”

Her father said: “Let me, Eleanor. It’s all right, Nora. I know everything. Your mother had just brought Elizabeth back to our house. It was just after nine. We were loading our bags into the car when Peter and Miranda drove up in a limousine, saying they’d talked it over, and decided that Elizabeth was coming along with them after all. They were on their way to the airport.”

Nora looked at her parents in turn. “No—no! They weren’t supposed to leave until Saturday.”

Eleanor seized her hand. “We had to let her go, Nora—what else could we do? What could we have told the police? And Peter saw our bags; he knew what was happening, I’m sure of it. Oh, Nora, I’m so afraid we’ll never see her again.”

4

Cormac watched his father’s eyelids flutter. Surely that was a good sign. Dreaming—if that’s what it was—meant brain activity, at least. The afternoon crawled by as they waited for a sign—any evidence to indicate how much damage the stroke had done. At this point there were no external symptoms—no drooping face, no apparent weakness in his limbs, but the brain controlled all other functions as well: language, sensation, personality. Damage to any of those mysterious bundles of cells could wreak swift havoc.

Roz dozed in the chair beside the window. She was putting a good face on it, but he knew she was confounded. Bollixed before she ever had a chance. They were a strange trio. Anyone looking in might jump to completely erroneous conclusions. Several of the nurses had already taken himself and Roz for a married couple, and he hadn’t the heart to correct them.

He’d been reading up on some of the materials the doctor had provided on stroke rehabilitation, and was alternately encouraged and depressed. At this point they still had no idea who would come out of the coma. Would the man who woke up here be some reduced version of Joseph Maguire? There was risk of a still-vital mind trapped in a nonfunctioning body. Cormac suddenly realized he wouldn’t have much longer to wait and wonder. Joseph’s eyes began to flutter again, more rapidly this time. Then they opened wide, just as he took a deep lungful of air. It was almost as if he’d been underwater, holding his breath. Cormac watched his father blink several times, apparently unable to focus. Probably all he could see was the dust-clogged grate in the ceiling. Did that shape mean anything to him? Did he even know what it was?

The old man’s lips began to move; he was struggling to make a sound, but managed only a low moan. His hand reached out, and Cormac took it and held on. “Raahhh. Raaaahhh,” the old man croaked, and Cormac moved closer, unsure whether to speak. “Da?” he said at last. The shape of the word felt foreign on his tongue. It was as if they were both infants again, reduced to single syllables.

“Unnhhh. Raaaahhh,” the old man said again. Was he trying to say “Roz”?

“I’m right here. Roz and I are both here.”

Tears began to trickle from the corners of the old man’s eyes, but whether they were brought on by emotion, or merely the effort of trying to speak, Cormac could not tell. He only knew he was overwhelmed by the notion of having a second chance, an opportunity to forge something new from ruins destroyed long ago. How many received that gift?

Roz stirred in her chair. “What’s happening—what did I miss?”

“Nothing,” Cormac said. “He’s just now opened his eyes.” The old man’s hand felt warm, leathery. The words might be absent, but Cormac looked into his father’s eyes and saw something burning in the depths of those dark pools, a light of recognition. “I think he knows me, Roz.” His father’s warm, dry fingers closed around his hand. “That’s it. Do you know who I am?” Another small compression—but Cormac felt it as a semaphore, a signal between far-distant sentries.

“Do you know my name?” Again the slight pressure. “My God, you’re there, aren’t you?”

Roz approached the bedside, her eyes shining. “How are you, Joe? We’ve missed you.”

The old man’s gaze turned to her, and with a sinking feeling, Cormac watched the small light of recognition sputter and flicker out. “It’s Roz,” he said. “You know Roz—”

But it was no good. And Roz could see it as well. She had been erased from Joe’s memory by the recent brain storm. Every tender feeling the old man held for her had been wiped away. It made sense that the memories last formed were the least solid, while the older memories—of people, places, events—were cemented into place like a building’s foundation, the last thing left standing in the event of calamity.

Roz tried not to show how much she felt the slight. “Why don’t I just wait out in the—” She waved a hand and left the room. Cormac found her a few minutes later at the far end of the corridor, her face flushed and wet with tears.

“Roz, listen to me. You can’t expect everything just to be there as if nothing had happened. He’ll come back. Everything will come back, eventually. You have to be patient.”

“I’m not there at all, Cormac. It’s as if I never existed.”

5

When their plane touched town at Dublin Airport, Elizabeth managed to fall a few steps behind her father and Miranda after they made their way through customs and passport control. She fell a little farther behind as they headed toward the airport exit, and her heart rose into her throat as she slipped into a shop filled with whiskey bottles and perfume and all kinds of gleaming jewelry. DUTY FREE, said the sign above the door. She hung back beside a wall of crystal bowls and glasses and clocks, watching passersby through the glass, their faces and limbs distorted and shattered into hundreds of facets edged with rainbows, thinking about how those two words together—DUTY FREE—seemed like a contradiction. She watched her dad and Miranda move out of sight without even noticing she was gone.

Her plan was to look up Nora’s address in the phone book, and get a taxi to take her there. She approached the shop counter and addressed the woman who stood behind it: “Excuse me—would you happen to have a phone book?”

The woman looked like somebody’s grandmother, with her soft brown sweater set and glasses that perched on the end of her nose. She squinted down through them. “Sorry, love, what was it you needed?”

“I was wondering if you had a phone book I could use?”

“Phone book? Oh—the telephone directory, is it? What would you be needing with that? Sure, no one uses those old printed books anymore, not when you can just ring directory enquiries on your mobile—” She glanced down, sensing Elizabeth’s disappointment. “Do you know, I’m sure we must have a directory here somewhere. The oh-one for Dublin, is it?” The woman began to search under the counter.

Elizabeth glanced over her shoulder to make sure her dad and Miranda had not come back. “I’m not sure. I just need to look something up.”

The woman continued rooting around in the boxes under the counter, finally producing a fat telephone book. “There you are, now. You’re not lost, are you, love?”

Elizabeth shook her head, and started flipping through the book, startled at all the pages and pages of Lynches, Kennedys, Kavanaghs—until at last she came to a page full of Gavins. There must be hundreds of them. She traced her finger down the column, looking for one in particular, and there it was: “Gavin, N., Whitefriar Street, Dublin 8.” The woman behind the counter was staring at her.

“Um—you wouldn’t have a pen?”

“Would a biro suit?”

Elizabeth wasn’t sure how to reply. Would a Byro Suit what?

The woman smiled and handed her a ballpoint pen. She quickly scribbled Nora’s address and phone number on the inside of her wrist, yanking her sleeve down to cover it.

The woman leaned down and spoke quietly. “First time in Ireland? You’re not in trouble, are you, love?”

“Oh no—nothing like that. I just wanted to surprise someone.” Elizabeth turned to see a well-dressed couple passing the store entrance. “There’s my mom and dad now—they’re looking for me. Thanks for your help.”

Outside the airport’s front entrance, she climbed into the first taxi in line. “I need to go to Whitefriar Street,” Elizabeth said to the driver, and waited for a reaction. She hoped he wouldn’t guess that she didn’t have money to pay the fare. Not the right kind of money, anyway. Elizabeth tried not to look nervous when he glanced back at her in the rearview mirror. What if he’d seen her checking the address on her arm?

“No luggage, miss?” he asked.

“No. I have to get to Whitefriar Street—where my aunt lives. It’s a family emergency.” That made it sound serious enough. The driver glanced at her again in the rearview mirror, then edged his cab out into the flow of traffic.

6

On the way out of the Emergency Room with her mother, Nora saw the fisherman, Sotharith. He was still there, waiting for her. She pulled on Eleanor’s arm.

“Mam, wait—there’s someone I have to see.”

Sotharith looked up as they approached. He stood, clearly uncomfortable in this place. But he had stayed. “You—okay?” he asked.

“Yes, they’re letting me go. This is my mother, Eleanor Gavin. Mam, this is Sotharith—I’m sorry, I don’t know your family name.”

“Seng,” he said. “Seng Sotharith.”

“My Good Samaritan,” Nora said to her mother. “He flagged someone down after the accident, and got me here.”

Eleanor pressed her palms together close to her face and bowed deeply. “Choum reap suor,” she said.

Sotharith would not meet Eleanor’s gaze. “Choum reap suor,” he murmured, mirroring her bow but bending even lower. “You speak Khmer?”

“Very little,” Eleanor said. “A few words picked up from my patients.”

A new light sparked in Sotharith’s averted eyes. “You a doctor?” he asked.

Eleanor nodded. “I run the community clinic in Frogtown.”

“Sotharith’s father was a doctor,” Nora explained. “Before the war.” She could see her mother grasp what had become of this man’s doctor-father, and perhaps the rest of his family as well.

Eleanor turned to him. “Lok Sotharith, you’ve been very good to us. I would like to repay your kindness somehow.” She handed him a card. “Will you come and see me at the clinic when you can?” He took the card and nodded, bowing low to her mother once more.

Nora couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her rescuer. She needed to speak to him, to find out more about what he knew about the phone and the note he’d found in the woods. “My father is bringing the car around—can we take you home, or offer you a meal—something?” He shook his head, and she realized that he had spent nearly a whole day looking after her. He might have put his job at the restaurant in jeopardy.

“Choum reap suor,” he said, bowing again. Nora joined her mother this time, pressing her palms together and repeating after him as her mother did: “Choum reap suor.”

When Tom Gavin pulled the car up in front of the Emergency Room entrance, he said: “We’re taking you home with us, Nora. No arguments.”

“None offered.”

As they turned onto John Ireland Boulevard near the Capitol, Nora’s phone began to chirp. She hoped it was Frank, but the voice on the phone was female, and worried.

“Nora, it’s Saoirse Donovan. I’m not quite sure how to tell you this—I’ve got a child here who says she’s your niece.”

“Hang on, Saoirse—” Nora pressed the phone to her shoulder and spoke to her parents. “It’s a friend from Dublin. She says Elizabeth is there with her. I’ll find out what’s going on.” Lifting the phone to her ear again, she said: “Saoirse, tell me what happened.”

“Well, Jack and I were getting ready for a short holiday up at our summer place in Skerries. And as we were loading up the car, who should appear but this beautiful child, asking if you lived at this address. When I told her that you did, but you’d gone home to the States, she was very upset. She hasn’t said much more, only that she’s your niece, and needs to see you—it’s very important. And that’s all we’ve been able to get out of her. She wouldn’t even give her name.”

“How did she know where to find me?”

“I don’t know. She arrived in a taxi from the airport, had the address written on her arm. The thing is, Nora”—Saoirse seemed uneasy, and lowered her voice—“the thing is, the taxi man is still here as well. Says he’s got kids of his own, and he’s not about to leave a child with strangers unless he can be given assurances that she’s going to be all right. We explained to him that you’re a good friend, that we’re happy to look after the child, but—maybe you could talk to him. He’s quite adamant.”

“Let me speak to him,” Nora said.

A voice with a broad Dublin accent came on the phone. “Sean Meehan here. Who am I speakin’ to?”

“Nora Gavin. If the child with you is my niece, then her name is Elizabeth Hallett. You can ask her if you want to be sure.” She could hear him put the question: “I have your auntie here, child. She asks if you’ll tell us your name now?”

A young voice answered: “Elizabeth. Elizabeth Hallett.” Nora’s heart leapt.

“And your auntie’s name, the one you’re looking for?”

“Nora Gavin.”

Meehan was still skeptical. “How do I know you’re who you say you are? These people could have phoned anyone, told you what to say.”

The question was valid, Nora thought. How could she prove who she was, from thousands of miles away, without benefit of photographs, fingerprints, DNA? She frowned, trying to scare up some tidbit of information that only she and Elizabeth might know. A password to a shared past. Then it came to her. “Ask Elizabeth if she remembers the song her mother used to sing to her when she was little—”

There were muffled sounds of the question being asked, and Meehan’s voice came on again. “She says she’s not sure.”

“Could I just try something? Would you just hold up the phone so she can hear me?” Closing her eyes and placing the receiver close to her lips, Nora began to sing the mysterious words that echoed the language of the seals, hoping they would awaken something in Elizabeth, stir a memory that would reconnect them. When she finished, there was only silence at the other end. “Elizabeth, do you remember?”

Meehan spoke into the phone again, his voice husky with emotion. “Jaysus Christ, the poor little yoke. What happened to her mammy?”

“My sister was murdered, Mr. Meehan,” Nora said. She could hear him curse softly. “Elizabeth was very young; she never really understood what happened, never knew her father was a suspect. There’s never been enough evidence to charge him. That’s why it’s vital that you not take her to the Guards. Her father has probably gone to them already. And the way things stand, they’d be obliged to return her to him—do you understand why I can’t let that happen?”

Meehan was still uneasy. “Christ—I pulled over at one point, tried to get her to go back to the airport. She said there was no way she was going back. Made me wonder if there wasn’t something funny going on.”

“I can catch the next flight over and be there tomorrow—if you’ll leave her in care of the Donovans. Please. I can vouch for them, and they’ll take good care of her until I can get there—”

“One question. Does the child’s daddy have this address?”

Nora thought for a moment. “No—I mean, I’m not sure. Why?”

“Well, I was just thinking—if he does know where to look, you might want to consider keeping the little one somewhere else—far away from here, like.”

“The Donovans were on their way up to their summer place in Skerries. Elizabeth would be safe there for the moment. Her father would have no idea where to look.”

7

Harry Shaughnessy made his way down the stairs cut into the steep hill, wondering how he was going to get across Shepard Road. Cars streamed in both directions. He shouldn’t have come this way, but it was the quickest way to get down to the camp. Everyone had used these stairs in the old days. It was a long time since then, the streetcar days. Nobody seemed to walk now; everybody drove. And all the places people used to walk were neglected and overgrown with weeds.

He was glad that he’d so far managed to avoid that young lady he’d met outside the library a couple of days ago. Saw her again yesterday. What did she want? Better if he didn’t get close enough to find out. She’d start asking questions. That’s what she really wanted, he could see it in her eyes. The thought of having to answer questions always triggered a panicky feeling inside him. A need to get away. Next she’d be wanting to have a look in his pack, and he wasn’t about to give up any of that. Not without a fair trade—not on your life.

He sat down at the bottom of the steps to rest for just a minute, pressing at the stitch in his side, and looking down at the battered high-tops on his feet, water stains up the sides, a crack in the left sole, and it suddenly occurred to him—why not both soles? Didn’t he take just as many steps with the right as the left? Whatever the answer to that puzzle, these shoes wouldn’t be good much longer. Only a few more days’ wear in them, really. In his situation, a man needed decent footwear.

Reaching into his pack, he brought out a crumpled paper bag, and unrolled it, taking out a pair of new-looking black sneakers. Had anyone ever seen such a pair of shoes? He held them up, admiring the electric blue stripes along the sides. Still like new—only a little blood on them. Beggars couldn’t be choosers, as his mother used to say.

He still remembered the day they’d been given to him. That was how he thought of it, like a divine bestowal. Down on the riverbank one summer morning, washing his feet—he always felt more human when he had clean feet—so there he was, sitting on a rock, pants rolled up to his knees, rubbing cold water and sand between his toes, when a heavy bundle came hurtling down from above, and landed with a splash in the gravelly riverbed not three feet from where he sat. The water began to push against the bundle, and he had to move quickly to keep it from tumbling away. Once he had it, he looked up, trying to spot whoever had dropped the thing. Maybe they’d want it back—you never knew. No one visible above on the bridge. So he’d kept it, not even opening the bag until later that evening. That’s when he’d found the shoes, the sweatshirt he was wearing, and a pair of pants, too. As if someone up there knew exactly what he needed. It got cold, sleeping on the ground, even in summer. The clothes fit him all right; the hell of it was that the shoes had not. Never would. He’d hung onto them anyway, thinking maybe he could trade them for a different pair. But these shoes were extra special, worth a lot in trade. Nobody had ever offered what they were worth. Years of wear left in them. He’d swap them for something that would last a long time, with all the walking he did. When he’d finished admiring the shoes, he carefully rewrapped them in the brown paper bag, and stowed them again in his pack. He reached into the front pouch pocket of his shirt and pulled out the handwritten note he’d found there when he’d first put the sweatshirt on. I know what you did, it said. Hidden Falls 11 pm tonite. How could anyone know what he did? He only did what was necessary, what he had to do. What they all had done.

Harry hefted the pack on his shoulder, and looked across the empty railroad tracks, and beyond them, at Shepard Road. He crossed the rail bed, watching where he put a foot in case he’d stumble and fall. There wasn’t much danger. Trains came through only a couple of times a day now, and walking the tracks wasn’t as perilous as it had once been. But beyond the tracks, the cars on Shepard Road flew along at ungodly speeds.

He waited patiently until the road was clear in both directions before picking his moment to cross. And when it came, he moved with the grace and agility of a much younger man, hardly conscious of the muscles in his legs and back, of all the bones and sinews that worked together so miraculously to propel him forward.

But the SUV that hit him was traveling nearly sixty miles an hour, and Harry Shaughnessy was suddenly and unceremoniously removed from the mortal world.