What Lies Below: A Novel

by Barbara Taylor Sissel

  But no cop appeared. Naturally. The law was never around when you needed it. It might have been funny if he wasn’t so pissed and scared. By the time he exited onto I-45, it was nearing five o’clock rush hour, and traffic was heavy even in the southbound lanes that led into the city. The downtown skyline loomed ahead, a jumbled mass of buildings, glass-fronted, sun struck, alien. Stephanie lived in its shadow, on a street in the first ward. Jake didn’t know Houston well, but what he’d heard about the wards—there were six, designated as political districts back in the day—was nothing good. His impression was that they were full of thugs and crackheads. No kind of place for a single woman to live. Steph had said he was behind the times; the area was undergoing gentrification. She’d said it was fine. She lived in something she called a garden apartment. A pretty little place, she had said. In a neighborhood as safe as any in Wyatt, she had said.

  He’d programmed her address into his phone, and he swiped it now and punched the “Maps” icon. A voice led him through a series of turns, down a rabbit warren of narrow streets. He passed blocks of new construction, high dollar from the look of it, and when, a few hundred yards later, the disembodied phone voice advised him to turn right onto Stephanie’s street, he did. He was in the midst of registering the contrast, the decided shift down in accommodations from deluxe to derelict, when he saw the patrol car parked in front of a small shotgun-style clapboard house that had once been painted white. The car was empty. Jake pulled in behind it and got out.

  “No one home over there,” a woman hollered from the front stoop of the house next door. “I told that cop.”

  Jake went to the woman’s front gate. “Do you know the woman who lives there, Stephanie Halstead? Have you seen her today—with a little girl?”

  “Ain’t seen her or her man ’round here, not in a week, maybe two. Ain’t never seen her with a little girl.”

  Her man. It wasn’t lost on him. Jake glanced next door. The driver of the squad car—it was from the Houston police department—wasn’t anywhere in sight. Gone around back, Jake thought. He looked at the woman. She might have been fifty, or thirty, or seventy-five. She looked rough. Rode hard and put up wet. The phrase went through his mind. “Do they have a car? Stephanie and her—her man? Would you know the make and model?”

  The woman had lit a cigarette and regarded him through a cloud of smoke. “Are you the law, too? A detective, right? What you want with her anyway?”

  “She’s my ex-wife, and she’s got my daughter—”

  “Oh, now, I don’t want nothin’ to do with no custody fight. Child belongs with its mama anyway, you ask me.”

  “Do you know where she might have gone? That’s all I want to know—”

  “Mr. Halstead? I’m Sergeant Kevin Kersey, Houston Police Department.”

  Jake wheeled and the uniformed officer stepped back. Jake thought it must show on his face, how bad he wanted to smash something, someone—the woman on the porch.

  “You want to walk over here with me?” Kersey asked. He was older, Jake’s dad’s age, if he’d still been alive.

  Jake followed Sergeant Kersey down the busted sidewalk. “There’s no one in the house that I can tell,” Kersey said, pausing beside his cruiser. “No one answered when I knocked or when I shouted out.”

  “We have to get inside. My ex-wife drinks and does drugs. Whatever she can get,” he added. “She could be in there, passed out.”

  “I’d need a warrant—”

  “So get one. My little girl could be with her.”

  “I checked around back, looked in the windows. There’s no sign anyone’s home. No sign of trouble at all.”

  “Zoe could be scared, hiding.” Jake went up the sidewalk.

  “Mr. Halstead.” There was a slight warning inflection in the sergeant’s tone.

  Jake ignored it. “If she knows I’m here, she’ll come out. Zoe?” He raised his voice, but not too much. “It’s Daddy, ZooRoo. You ready to come home?” He went up on the porch and peered through the window beside the front door. His view was unobstructed, a straight shot from the front room through the kitchen to the back door of the house, and it was grim, no garden apartment. The walls were hole pocked, the carpet shredded. The couch had no cushions. A lamp on the floor beside it was missing a shade. Jake didn’t want to accept it, that Stephanie lived here. He thought of his house in Wyatt.

  It was an older home in the historic section of town, Mustang Hill, a snug three-bedroom Craftsman bungalow that he’d renovated. The kitchen, with its glass-front cabinets and window-seated breakfast nook, had been Steph’s favorite room. He had repainted it for her. The soft shade of yellow she’d chosen was the color of buttercups. The color of happiness, she’d said.

  But there was nothing happy here in the dark, damaged heart of this house.

  His glance fell from a kitchen cabinet door that hung askew to the table and one straight-backed chair, tipped against the wall. But it was the pitcher—the small white milk pitcher with the roses painted on it—that caught his attention. It was sitting beside a paper plate that had a slice of pizza hanging over its edge. The pitcher was Limoges, from France, circa 1825. Jake knew because Stephanie had told him.

  The pitcher was one of the few heirlooms she had from her family, all dead now. It was one of the only things she’d brought with her from New York. Once he’d finished painting the kitchen of the house in Wyatt, Stephanie had bought flowers almost weekly at the HEB, where she grocery shopped, and kept them in that little pitcher on the table in the breakfast nook she had loved.

  And now the pitcher was here, surrounded by garbage.

  Jake thought how Stephanie was like the pitcher, small and delicate. Dark-haired and dark-eyed, she was as fragile as china. She cried easily. He remembered her tears, but he couldn’t remember the sound of her laugh.

  He thought of the shit that went down in houses like this. Drug houses, crack houses. It scared him to think Steph had brought Zoe here—that his little girl might be inside. On another level, it ripped his heart open, seeing how low Stephanie had sunk He had tried so hard to save her.

  “No one’s here, trust me.”

  Jake didn’t answer. He went off the porch and around back, Sergeant Kersey following in his wake. Jake had the sense Kersey was letting him do this—trespass on private property—allowing him to satisfy himself that the house was empty. He knew it was; the air of desertion was palpable. Still he went through the motions. He tried the back door; it was locked. He looked in the bedroom window, where the only furnishings were a stained mattress shoved into a corner and a chest of drawers with a busted leg. He looked in the bathroom window at the mildew-spotted shower curtain and blackened tub, the filthy sink and seatless toilet bowl. And then, feeling weak, he turned to lean against the house, letting the heat from the sun-warmed clapboards soak through his T-shirt.

  “Mr. Halstead?” The sergeant’s voice was kind. “We’re doing everything we can to find her. We’ve got the Amber Alert, photos, a description of what your daughter was wearing. If your ex has her, and they’re in the area, we’ll find them.”

  “She doesn’t have custody. You know that, right? Stephanie isn’t allowed to see Zoe anywhere but in Wyatt in my presence. She can’t bring Zoe here. She can’t see her unsupervised. There’s a court order.”

  “Yes sir, I understand.”

  “The woman next door says there’s a man living here? Do you know who he is? Maybe they’re in his car?”

  “We’ve had some calls in the past to this address. Could be any number of guys. This house—a lot of folks—addicts—” The sergeant broke off, looking away.

  “Shit.” Jake said it under his breath.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I have to find Zoe. I have to find my little girl before it gets dark.” Jake looked at the sergeant. He felt embarrassingly close to tears.

  “You should go home, Mr. Halstead.”

  “No, you don’t understand. I promised her I would never
disappear on her the way her mother did.”

  “Yeah. I get that, but your ex, if she’s got your daughter, maybe she’ll . . .” Sergeant Kersey paused again, hunting for a word, settling on wise. Instead of sober up, he said maybe Jake’s ex would wise up. “She could do the right thing and bring Zoe home on her own, you know? You’ve got someone at your house in Wyatt, right, in case?”

  Jake shook his head. His mom was the logical person, but he wasn’t ready to involve her yet anymore than he was ready to leave here without Zoe. He looked at the sergeant. “You’re right. I should get back to Wyatt.” Jake led the way to the front of the house, walking with the police officer to his squad car, expecting him to get in the vehicle and drive off. But he didn’t.

  Instead, in a friendly, conversational tone, he said, “If you go inside the house, Mr. Halstead, you’ll be breaking the law, and I’ll know it, because I’m going to be driving by here, checking on the place.” Kersey let his gaze drift. “I know how bad you want your daughter back, but you’re damn sure no good to her if you’re sitting in jail on a breaking-and-entering charge.”

  Jake didn’t answer. He knew the sergeant was serious, a by-the-book law-and-order man. “You’ve got my contact information?”

  Sergeant Kersey got his phone from his pocket, and finding Jake’s cell number, he read it off. He stowed his phone again once Jake had confirmed it was correct, and walked Jake to his truck.

  “I don’t care what time it is.” Jake got into the cab, keyed the ignition, and lowered the window. “I’ll never sleep,” he told the sergeant. “Not until I get Zoe back.”

  Jake was on the outskirts of Houston when he pulled off the interstate to call his mom. He thought he was calm, that he had himself under control, but then the sound of her voice, the valiant effort she made, for his sake, to keep from showing her panic, almost undid him. She already knew what had happened, most of it anyway. Jake didn’t have to ask how she’d heard. The Wyatt grapevine was never more efficient than when a catastrophe was brewing.

  “I’m at your house,” she said. “I figured someone should be here in case Steph decides to bring Zoe home.”

  Of course, she would already know what to do, how to help. Jake thanked her. He said, “It’ll probably be close to eleven before I can get there.”

  “You sound exhausted,” his mom said, and she went on worriedly, asking when he’d last eaten, things like that, but Jake was only half listening. He was thinking about Gilly, remembering how she’d told him where he could find his wallet. Would she know where his kid was if he asked her? But she’d said herself the thing with his wallet had been a fluke. He didn’t believe in any of that mumbo jumbo shit anyway. He wasn’t that desperate. Yet—

  “Jake? Are you there?”

  He pulled his gaze back in. “Yeah, Ma, I’m sorry. I’ll get a burger somewhere and be home quick as I can.”

  They exchanged promises to call if either of them heard any news, and he was pulling his phone from his ear when his mom said his name again. “Jake? You’re sure Stephanie is who picked Zoe up?”

  “Who else could it be?”

  “Well, of course it’s her. It has to be.”

  His mom’s conviction was a show she was putting on for his sake. What if it isn’t Stephanie, Jake? That’s what she really wanted to ask him. What then? But he had no stomach for that discussion right now much less any answer.

  7

  Miss O’Connell?” Clint Mackie prompted Gilly. “I asked how it is you know Zoe Halstead wasn’t taken by her mom? Do you know Stephanie? Were you at the school? Did you see Zoe with someone other than Stephanie?”

  Gilly didn’t answer, although she knew from experience not answering when a cop asked you a question wasn’t an option. Even Carl, for all that he’d been kind and gentle about it, had pressured her for information in the wake of Brian’s murder. Sophie had been barely an hour old and still clinging to life when he and his partner, Garrett, showed up at the hospital. The interview they’d been conducting with her outside the convenience store had been interrupted when a sharp pain low in her belly had doubled her over. As she’d straightened, hand pressed to her side, she’d felt breathless, lightheaded. Something warm was running down her legs, and she’d looked at the bloody discharge leaking into her ballet flats. She would have fallen if Carl hadn’t steadied her. At the hospital, after Sophie was born, he had said he was sorry, but they needed her to finish telling them what she’d witnessed while her memory was still fresh.

  She’d been given a dose of something postdelivery to dull her anguish, but even so when the detectives came into her room she was trembling. She had no control over that or her tears. She wanted desperately to help the police, and she told them everything she remembered, which wasn’t much, and then, before she could stop herself, she told them she’d seen the whole thing happen the night before in a dream. Garrett could barely contain his derision, but Carl asked Gilly to close her eyes and focus on her breathing, and then he directed her to try and recall the dream scenario.

  “Do you see what the shooter is wearing?” he asked. “Does he have any distinguishing marks? Tattoos? Is he wearing any jewelry? Is there anything unusual about his clothing?”

  As Carl spoke, Gilly unspooled the dream sequence before her mind’s eye, but just as Brian’s killer had been in reality, in her recall of the dream the man was little more than a shadow dashing across the terrified field of her vision. The grim wash of sodium vapor picked out the white of an eye, the blade of a jaw. He could have been anyone.

  If Carl was disappointed—and he must have been—he gave no sign. He handed her his business card. “My cell number’s on there. Call me, okay? Anytime. If you remember anything else. No matter how unimportant you think it is.”

  Garrett was already in the hallway when Carl paused in the doorway, and turning to her, said in a low voice, “You can call me if you just need to talk, too.”

  She thanked him.

  “I hope Sophie is okay,” he added after a beat, and Gilly was moved by his kindness, the compassion in his eyes.

  But Sophie wasn’t okay. Only hours after Gilly gave birth to her in a shambles of shock and grief, her tiny, underdeveloped heart and lungs gave out. If Brian’s death took Gilly to her knees, Sophie’s death leveled her flat. The world went dark. If it had not been for her mother, Gilly wasn’t certain she would have survived those first awful weeks. She didn’t always get along with her mom. There had been hard times between them, weeks when they’d barely spoken, but whatever their grudges were, they’d been erased, washed away in the flood of their mutual grief. Gilly’s mother had lost, too—her first grandbaby and her son-in-law, whom she adored. She couldn’t have loved Brian more if he’d been her own. But everyone had loved Brian. Unlike Gilly, he’d been outgoing, warmly affectionate, and funny. He’d seek out the person hovering on the fringe of the crowd and set them at ease. It was how he’d found her. Lost in the crowd at a party her University of Houston roommate had dragged her to only to promptly abandon her for the first guy she met. Brian had made a silly joke, something that had made Gilly laugh.

  He was like a tonic. A blessing, Gilly’s mother had called him.

  What Gilly knew was that while she and Brian were together, and especially after they created Sophie, life had made sense. But when she had lost them, life was only pain. Her heart beating in her chest hurt. Her lungs filling with her breath hurt. Her brain churned an endless circuit of what ifs and if onlys. What if she’d gone inside the store with him? If only she hadn’t mentioned her craving, he wouldn’t have stopped there.

  He was dead because of her. That was all. The cold fact. The guilt shouldered in alongside her sorrow, and the pain was intolerable, constant, and wearing. At first she limited herself to the drugs the doctor prescribed, and she only allowed herself one or two glasses of wine in the evenings—to take the edge off. But that edge was so sharp and her agony so consuming. She tried to work. There were many projects, calls to
return, deadlines to meet. At the time of Brian’s death, they had been immersed in the design of a half dozen projects. They blurred in her mind. She made mistakes. She was negligent, not paying the bills, not getting back to clients. Some days she couldn’t get out of bed. The landlord, a friend, held out as long as he could, but finally, he gave up on Gilly and her promises to do better, and the day came when B&G Architects was no more.

  She drank seriously then. There was no reason not to. It was easy enough to get the booze. Drugs were a little harder to come by after the doctors stopped her prescriptions, but she learned, eventually, how and where and from whom to get pretty much whatever she wanted—oxy, fentanyl, dilaudid.

  She prayed to die.

  And through all that time, her mother held on to her. When Gilly was sick from the drinking and doping, and retching into the toilet, her mother had held her hair out of her face. She had climbed into bed when Gilly woke screaming from her nightmares. She had cajoled Gilly to eat, take a walk, ride to the store. She had never lost her faith that Gilly would pull through.

  In the early days of Gilly’s sobriety, her mom had been so hopeful, and the light had come back into her eyes. She had wanted to keep Gilly close, and it had been hard and scary, leaving her. But Gilly knew she couldn’t lean on her mother forever. She had to learn to live again on her own. Her mom was concerned she wasn’t ready. She had been so grateful for Carl. She’d wanted Gilly to stay in Houston with him, where he could protect her. Going to another part of the state, miles away, wasn’t safe. Even if Brian’s killer—whom Gilly had witnessed, however briefly, running from the store—wasn’t still on the loose, there was Gilly’s precarious sobriety at stake. The problem was that neither of them—not Carl or her mother—understood how burdened Gilly was by their constant worry and concern.