Fragile

8

There was something about the thumping that communicated to her, through deep layers of sleep, a sense of alarm. Even as she swam through the locks of consciousness, she felt the dawn of panic. A knowing. When she emerged into wakefulness, Jones was already up and pulling on the pants he’d left lying on the floor. The window was open, and the air had grown frigid.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Someone at the door.”

They were parents. Jones was a cop, Maggie a psychologist. They were accustomed to interrupted sleep, the phone ringing at all hours. But this felt different. It was the door, not the phone, first of all. But more than that, the knocking was frantic, not measured and authoritative, as it would be had someone from the department needed to rouse Jones, unable for whatever reason to reach him on his cell or home phone.

Jones was out the bedroom door before Maggie had climbed from beneath the covers. As she was pulling on a sweater over her T-shirt, retrieving a pair of jeans from the floor, she heard him moving down the stairs.

“I’m coming. Take it easy,” he called. Jones was not a man happily roused from sleep. He woke up like an ogre, cranky and groggy. This had better be good, or she felt sorry for whoever was at the door.

Before she followed him downstairs, her first instinct was to look in on her son. She pushed open the door to his bedroom and saw his sleeping form sprawled on the bed, one long leg dangling off the side. He was snoring deeply, had his headphones on.

She could hear the tinny sound of music carrying on the air; she saw the undulating red and green lights on the stereo system beside his bed. There was a surreal quiet to the moment. When she looked back on it, she’d remember a kind of hum in the air. It was the last safe place. The last moment when she could fool herself that any of them had a grip on anything in this world.

After she’d closed Ricky’s door and headed down the stairs, she heard a woman’s voice, talking fast, shrill with nerves.

“Is my daughter here? I’ve been trying to call. The line’s been busy for hours.” Maggie heard an agitated laugh. “I never understood people who take their phone off the hook.”

Charlene’s mother, Melody Murray, was a wreck-her blond hair with dark black roots in a tousle, circles under her eyes, no makeup. Her face was long with worry.

“Come inside,” Maggie said. She reached the bottom of the stairs and pushed past Jones to put her hand on the woman’s shoulder. Jones had been holding her at the door, almost seemed to have been blocking her way with an arm, the door itself opened just a foot or two. Melody looked behind her; she’d left her car running. Exhaust came out in great plumes, glowing and strange in the red of the parking lights.

“We fought,” she said. “Charlene left, and I just assumed she came here.”

There was a flatness to her voice suddenly that didn’t connect with the frightened look in her eyes.

“When was the last time you saw her?” Jones asked. Maggie stepped out onto the porch to stand beside Melody. The stone was cold beneath her bare feet.

“She left the house around six, I think?” Melody used that questioning tone that seemed to be so popular with teenagers and sociopaths. It was a tone that begged permission, understanding, elicited a nod of verification.

“We fought,” she said again. Melody brought her thumb to her mouth and started chewing.

“What about?” Jones asked. Maggie read the expression on his face, his tone-disdain, suspicion. He didn’t like Melody Murray, never had. Maggie suspected that was a big reason why he didn’t like Charlene.

Melody seemed startled by the question, as if she’d forgotten that Jones was a cop, that by coming here she was essentially reporting her daughter missing.

“Melody, come inside,” Maggie said. “Jones will turn off your car.”

She gave her husband a look. He opened his mouth to say something, then clamped it shut. Then he obeyed like a good husband. As she escorted Melody inside, Maggie saw Jones take the cell phone from the pocket of his jeans while he moved toward the drive; he must have grabbed it when he got up, cop that he was. He was calling it in, a missing girl. Whether she was at a friend’s house or had done something stupid like try to run away, she was, at the moment, a missing minor. Maggie suppressed a shudder.

“This is a nice house,” Melody said, looking around. When Maggie glanced around her own home, all she could see were the flaws-the hairline crack in the ceiling, baseboards that needed dusting, the soda stain on the couch.

“Thanks,” she said. “Come on in and have a seat.”

With a hand on Melody’s shoulder, Maggie led her down the hall to the living room. About halfway there, Melody stopped and turned around.

“Is she? Is she here?” Melody asked. She stared at Maggie with naked hope. In a formless long gray sweater and baggy sweatpants, Melody seemed waiflike and lost.

“No, she’s not, Melody. I just checked Ricky’s room before I came down. He’s alone, asleep.”

The woman visibly shrank, her shoulders sagging forward, her head dropping. “Oh, God. Where is she?” Maggie heard the anguish; it was a pitch that any mother would recognize, the acknowledgment that a thousand imagined horrors had shifted into the realm of possibility. Maggie felt the first finger of real fear poke her in the belly.

“What’s going on?” Ricky stood bleary-eyed behind her. Jones walked back in the front door. He towered behind their son, hands on his hips. Jones’s thick build and sunshine blond hair contrasted with Ricky’s inky spikes and his lean, loping frame. Physically, they were opposites. But they both wore the same furrow in their brows.

Melody rose, pushed past Maggie, and ran to Ricky. “Where is she, Rick? Where did she go?”

Ricky shook his head. “Who?” he said. “Char? What do you mean?”

“Is she upstairs?” asked Jones.

Ricky turned to look at his father. When he answered, he sounded petulant and angry. “No.”

“She’s not,” Maggie confirmed. “I checked his room before I came downstairs. She’s not up there.”

Jones seemed to debate a moment, ran a hand over his hair. Then he turned and went upstairs anyway.

“He doesn’t believe me?” Ricky said, looking at Maggie.

“He’s just checking.”

Jones obviously didn’t believe her, either, she thought with a rush of annoyance. They heard him pounding around upstairs. Then, a moment later, he returned with the cordless phone from Ricky’s room in his hand.

“Why did you have the phone off the hook in your room?” he asked. He held it up to his son.

“I don’t know.” Ricky rubbed his eyes. “I was trying to reach Charlene. I must have fallen asleep without hanging it up. I don’t know.”

“Did you see her tonight?” Jones asked. He sounded more like a cop than a father, someone ready to believe the worst before anything had even happened.

“No. She stood me up. I was supposed to meet her at seven at Pop’s.”

“Oh, God,” said Melody.

“Does she have access to a vehicle?” asked Jones. He turned to Melody.

“No,” she said, issuing a sob. She covered her mouth with her hand.

“Then she left on foot.”

Melody nodded, and Maggie led her to the couch.

“Did you follow her out?” Jones asked. He trailed behind them. “When she left, did you see which way she walked?”

Melody shook her head again, sank down into the suede cushions. She grabbed one of the soft throw pillows and clutched it to her middle.

“Okay,” said Maggie. “Let’s all try to be calm a minute, think about this. If she was on foot, would she have gone to a neighbor’s house, a friend nearby?”

“I’ve called everyone. No one’s seen her.”

“Could she have used her cell phone to call someone, to have someone pick her up?” Maggie glanced up at Ricky. He looked at some point above her, his mouth slack and eyes wide. Who else would Charlene call but her boyfriend? She’d called him before when Graham and Melody were going at it. He’d told Maggie as much.

“She doesn’t have a cell phone,” said Melody.

But she did. Maggie had seen it, even had the number programmed into her own phone. She looked over at her son again; now he was staring at the floor. Did he know where Charlene was? She remembered him storming in, locking himself in his room, blasting the music. The phone was off the hook in his room. He looked up to see her watching him, and quickly cast his eyes away.

“She does have a cell phone, Melody,” Maggie said. She walked to the kitchen and took her phone from its charger. She scrolled through the numbers until she found it.

“Ricky,” Maggie said. “Call Charlene from the home phone right now.”

“I’ve been trying all night,” he said.

“Try again,” said Jones. He handed Ricky the cordless unit that he’d been holding, and the boy dialed.

“Put it on speakerphone,” said Jones, and Ricky obliged with a sullen glance at his father. The call went straight to voice mail. “This is Char. Leave a message-or don’t. What do I care?” Then a heavy strain of punk rock blasted out. Ricky looked around self-consciously.

“Uh, Char, it’s me. Where are you? Your mom is here. Everyone’s pretty worried. Call me back.”

He ended the call and kept his eyes on the phone in his hand.

“If you didn’t get that phone for her, Melody, where did she get it? She doesn’t have a job, right?” asked Jones.

Melody seemed distracted; she was staring out the window into the backyard.

“I don’t know,” she said. Her voice sounded weak and small.

They all looked at Ricky.

“How should I know?” he said, lifting his palms. “Everyone has a cell phone. I figured her mom got it for her.”

“You need a credit card to open a mobile account,” said Jones. Maggie waited for him to go on, but he was already walking off, his own cell phone in his hand. He turned back.

“I need that number,” he said to her.

Maggie handed him her phone with Charlene’s number still on the screen. He took it and walked off again. She heard him giving the number to someone on the other end. A few moments later, there was a knock at the door, then male voices in the foyer.

“Who would she have called other than you, Rick?” Maggie asked.

He gave a slow shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe Britney?”

Melody shook her head vigorously. “No. I already called.”

Maggie watched Ricky stare at the ground, shifting from foot to foot. Melody had a shine to her eyes. Jones stood grim-faced in the entrance to the living room, two uniformed officers behind him. Thinking purely as a professional, Maggie thought each of them was off pitch. Melody was too unhinged, considering Charlene had run off in a safe neighborhood after a fight, not for the first time. Ricky was vacant, looking anyplace but into her eyes. Jones was stern and angry, when he should have been helpful and concerned. Even she felt oddly disconnected, floating above the scene. The tightness in her chest was the only sign of the fear and tension she felt.

She was suddenly aware of the ticking of the old grandfather clock in the foyer-a housewarming gift from her mother. She didn’t even like it but found a general inertia when it came to getting rid of it. It had stood in its place, marking time, for more than a decade. As she walked to the closet, prepared to go out and look for Charlene herself, the clock issued a single chime, announcing the half hour. It was 11:30 P.M.