Little Green

by Tish Cohen

  Matt: Hey, saw you’re up. I need to get out of here

  Cass: Come over

  Matt: K120

  Cass: Seriously? Weather will suck up there

  Matt: I just need lift-off

  Cass: Meet out front in five. Dress warm

  Elise stared at the phone, stunned. That’s what Matt had done when he hung back, claiming to need food? He’d climbed the big ski jump all the way over by the horse showgrounds—with his ex-girlfriend? When their daughter was missing, it was Cass he needed? His ex-neighbor was who the man turned to when their daughter was missing? She continued to scroll through the messages to a sunny photo of Matt and Cass as tweens, lying in the grass, heads touching, him plucking petals from a daisy.

  There was way more to this relationship than Matt was letting on.

  Chapter 21

  In an act of cruelty, the rain and fog had lifted and now everything beyond the screened porch windows—the birch trees, the boathouse and shed, the rocks, and the calm water—was bathed in the softest, most golden light imaginable. The mountains beyond glowed red, and a robin warbled a tranquil evening song.

  Matt wanted to go outside and throttle it.

  “I know no one feels like eating. I’m sorry, but I’m going to force it,” said Cass, backing into the porch from outside with a foil-covered salad bowl and a bag of dinner rolls. Matt lurched forward to help her through, while Elise continued working on her map of the world by the fireplace.

  River came in behind his mother, so fully absorbed in his gaming device that he dropped down onto the rug without looking up. When he did, he seemed surprised to find he was no longer at home.

  To see him sitting there—with the drawings he and Gracie had been working on just two days ago—Matt didn’t think he could take it.

  Cass looked over to where Elise was stationed at her map. “What’s this?”

  “Sightings,” Elise said, her face drawn. “The navy ones are more reliable. Purple less likely.” She stuck a pink pin somewhere in the Greek islands.

  “What are pink?” asked Cass.

  “Psychic visions. Less credible.”

  “I don’t know about that.” Cass set her offerings on the long picnic table on the other side of the fireplace. “I think loads of cases have been solved that way.”

  The news droned softly from the small TV Matt had brought down from the bedroom. He couldn’t look at River, who’d stretched out now on the rug, bare toes bumping against each other as if he hadn’t a care in the world. The memory of Gracie giggling with him at the picnic table was debilitating.

  Matt debated sending him up to play in Gracie’s room. But, no. That might be worse.

  Cass pulled the foil from the food. “Here’s a big salad, and it’s better than my usual because you two need your energy. We’ve got arugula, sunflower seeds, beets . . . what else? A little goat cheese and cucumber. Be good and healthy for you. And I’ve ordered a party-sized pizza just the way Matty likes it: slathered in meat.”

  He watched her move easily around the room, warming when she went into the kitchen to help herself to dinner plates and glasses. She knew what was what and what was where in this house. Somehow there was comfort in that. He caught her eye as she came back into the room to set out the cups, the stack of plates. Mouthed, “Thank you.”

  Her fingertips grazed his forearm in reply.

  “Hey, all. Excuse the work attire.” Garth banged his way through the back door in khakis and a pink dress shirt, leather portfolio in hand. “Think I had my first appointment over on Saranac at seven thirty this morning. Insanity.” He dropped the portfolio onto a chair. “I brought over some comparables. Help you get a sense of what’s been happening out there.”

  “Garth!” Cass said, a hand on her hip. “Is this really the time?”

  “No, hey, sorry.” Garth’s embarrassment was genuine. He looked from Matt to Elise. “Guys. I’m only thinking the sale could help you financially during this, is all. You know, in case you need . . . whatever. To hire a private investigator. Anything.”

  Elise turned to Matt. “We should discuss that.”

  “The police are being amazing. Plus, the FBI is going to get involved.”

  “Yes, but we’re not in the city. We’re dealing with small-town cops.”

  From the floor, River started to make wet shooting sounds as his thumbs attacked his game device. Then the pings and pongs and electric explosions. Matt couldn’t take it and was pretty sure Elise was faring no better. But he couldn’t tell Cass to take her son away—the kid was certainly traumatized as well. She couldn’t leave him alone at home.

  Without taking his gaze from his screen, River rolled onto his back and stomped a foot. “When’s Gracie coming back?”

  Everything went silent, all conversation, all birds chittering in the trees, all lake water lapping against the dock. Cass’s embarrassment was clear as she looked at Matt and Elise. She knelt down next to her son, pushed the hair off his forehead, and pressed a kiss to his cheek. Softly, she said, “That’s what we’re trying to figure out, toad. We are on it.”

  Suddenly, Matt was ashamed of his irritation.

  Cass got up again to arrange plates around the table and the room came to life again. Cass began to hum, her sweater slipping off her shoulder. When she asked Matt for help locating salad tongs, he led her into the kitchen.

  “You were amazing with River just then.”

  “He’s unsettled, is all. Worried about his friend.”

  “Yeah, but you knew exactly what to say.”

  Cass jumped up to sit on the counter and watched Matt root through drawers packed tight with a lifetime’s worth of wooden spoons, stamps, potato mashers, rubber bands. Tangled spools of string. “You ever throw anything away?”

  Her teasing expression was so familiar. Pulled him back to the days when life was beautifully ordinary up here. You had time to watch a wet dog shake out his fur in the sun. To clear a skating rink on the frozen lake. To take a girl to the movies and feel a thrill when you both reached into the popcorn at the same time.

  He almost smiled as he handed Cass a pair of large forks. “What good would that do me?”

  A knock at the front window. Matt opened the door to the Casa Italia delivery man, a wiry sixty or so, with the crooked nose of someone who’d entertained a few blows to the face. He held out a huge pizza box, looking like he’d rather be anyplace else. His car sat running in the driveway. “Thirty-one ninety-eight.”

  Cass set the pizza on the hall table as Matt dug through his pocket for bills.

  “I couldn’t believe it when I heard.” The driver motioned toward the crest on the face of the house. “Nate Sorenson was the best. Gave my brother a loan back in the seventies when my sister-in-law was having a tough time, their kid needed surgery.”

  As Matt handed over four tens, he felt Cass’s hand slide up his shoulder. “Those stories are wonderful to hear,” she said. “So heartwarming.”

  The man started to count out change and Matt waved it away. “Keep it.”

  “We’re praying for you with your daughter. My whole street, we did a little candle thing last night. A vigil.” He nodded his respects. “I don’t listen when folks talk trash. People just like to knock anyone who’s better off than themselves. You gotta just keep your head down and focused. ’Night, Mr. Sorenson, Mrs. Sorenson.”

  Cass held up a hand to wave.

  “Good night.” Elise’s reply was crisp behind them. She gave her husband a long, level look and carried the pizza onto the back porch.

  The air held a chill now and Garth was bent over the hearth trying to get a fire going. He was using the old-fashioned tent technique and Matt couldn’t stand watching it. He crossed the room and nudged Garth out of the way. To busy himself with something—anything—helped. Matt stacked five thick logs across the fireplace grille, four slightly smaller split logs atop those, on the perpendicular, another layer of kindling, then a layer of crumpled newspaper and bro
ken twigs.

  “Upside-down fires,” Matt said to no one in particular. “My family swore by them.”

  Cass opened the pizza box Elise had left on the table and started slapping square slices onto plates. “Every layer burns and then ignites the one below. So the heat builds until the lower logs finally ignite. Burns longer, hotter. Very low maintenance. You don’t have to stoke it. When we were kids, Matty told me he’d invented it. I was stupid enough to believe him.”

  “You’ve never built one for me,” said Garth.

  “I forgot about them till now,” said Cass. “Come. Everybody eats. This Mama Bear doesn’t take no for an answer. Elise, that includes you.”

  Matt’s cell started to ring on the coffee table. Elise looked at the screen. “Barrans.”

  He reached for the phone, only to turn off the ringer and set it down again. “I’m sure he just wants to say he’s heard what’s happened.” He sat at the table and eventually the buzzing on the coffee table was replaced by the sound of silverware scraping against china.

  “You could’ve taken it,” Cass said.

  He hadn’t gotten back to Barrans about the partnership. Not that the man would’ve asked under the circumstances, but Matt’s ability to shoulder anyone else’s horror over his daughter’s disappearance was nonexistent. “He’ll call back.”

  “You’re eating two slices, Elise,” said Cass, putting salad on everyone’s plates. “We can’t have you wasting away. You need your strength. Matty, did I tell you that preorders of the book have already begun? Kind of crazy.”

  “Cass,” said Garth. “No one can think about book orders right now.”

  “I’m just trying to keep up the chatter.”

  “It’s okay,” said Matt. “Appreciated.”

  River, who hadn’t joined them at the table, turned the TV volume up. CNN broke the silence with a story on a small plane crash in a farmer’s field on the west coast of Scotland. Five dead, including the pilot. Three survivors, one of them a dog.

  Garth said, “Poor thing.”

  They all watched in silence as the owner of the dog—who hadn’t been on the flight—talked about the dog’s state of mind. Scared of any loud noise, but otherwise okay. The screen showed the remains of the travel crate. It was charred beyond recognition, but Lucky was found wandering the side of a motorway.

  “He’s going to be completely traumatized,” Elise said, staring at the screen, mesmerized. “He’ll need someone who knows what they’re doing.”

  The screen filled with Gracie’s face. The photo on the dock that Cass took—Gracie beaming with that sunburst of a smile. They all froze as Gracie was replaced with a shot of a journalist with perfectly layered auburn hair standing on their driveway back home in New Jersey. Cass jumped forward to turn it off.

  The room was silent but for bleeps and pings coming from River’s electronic game.

  Matt couldn’t fill his lungs. He pushed back his chair with a scrape. Stood. “Got to get some air.” He stuffed his feet into sandals, strode through the kitchen, and opened the front door to find Dorsey about to knock, the two officers behind him shadowed by the dusk sky.

  “We’ve had a sighting here in town. Wanted to show you this before we go.” He handed Matt a blurred photograph of a child on a rusted swing. The girl’s face wasn’t visible thanks to leafy branches in the way, but the messy ponytail—her hair was the right length, streaky blond.

  “Oh my god.” Elise appeared at Matt’s shoulder to stare at the photo. She grabbed her small purse and struggled to stay balanced while pulling on sneakers. To Dorsey, she said, “Do we come in your car or drive ourselves?”

  Matt answered first. “I’m sure the parents don’t get to come along.”

  “Actually, I prefer if you do,” Dorsey said. “If it is your daughter, she’s young and she’ll feel a whole lot safer if at least one of you is waiting in the car.” He started for his cruiser, waving for them to follow.

  Elise stared out the window in the back of Dorsey’s car as they traveled from the southernmost point of the village up Old Military Road, where density gave way to larger, more rural lots. The airport. The ski jump where Matt had his tête-à-tête with Cass.

  The police debated over the radio whether to turn on John Brown Road or Old John Brown Road—both of which ran west and converged about a half mile in. Didn’t seem to matter: both were heavily clogged with traffic. The car slowed to a crawl as they neared the bronze statue of Brown himself walking with a young slave boy. Tiny bugs swarmed in what little remained of the daylight.

  “Sorry about this.” Dorsey swerved around traffic, his forearm bumping the heavy-duty laptop mounted on the center console. “Not the best timing. Big award ceremony here tonight.” Elise watched families walking by with older children, toddlers in pajamas, and infants in strollers. One mother carried her young daughter on her hip. Elise looked away fast. “We’re better off passing all this and doubling back on Old John Brown Road up at the wishbone,” Dorsey continued. “The trees on the property we’re approaching are nice and dense if we approach that way. Don’t want to tip anybody off before we’re ready.”

  When Rosamunde made turkey, she always saved the wishbone. Let it dry overnight so that, the next day, they could hold opposite ends and pull. Whoever got the Y of the bone could make a wish. That Dorsey had chosen this route, where they would traverse the Y, had to be a good sign, thought Elise. They had the big piece of bone. Their wish would come true.

  Two other state police officers were in the car ahead of them, and as they drew nearer to the gates of the modest farmhouse, they swirled their lights to signal any cars or pedestrians blocking the road to move aside. Matt did a double take as they passed a sign, and Elise followed his gaze—was that Lyman the roofer’s picture on it? A balloon escaped from the crowd and she watched it drift up into the sky, its string bucking and twisting in the breeze.

  “I hope all this activity doesn’t scare them off,” Matt said.

  “It’s not a bad thing for us that the area’s a bit congested. Three police cars creeping up an otherwise quiet street would wave a pretty big flag.”

  Elise leaned forward. “How long ago was the child seen?”

  “Reports came in from several neighbors earlier this evening. Older woman’s lived here forever. All of a sudden she has a little blond girl living with her that no one’s ever met before.”

  “Using crutches?” Elise asked.

  “No one thought to look. We’re not going to get ahead of ourselves. Could mean nothing.”

  Elise sat back in her seat. Could mean everything.

  Dorsey held up a finger. He turned onto Old John Brown Road, where the woods grew tighter to the road. The homes here were sprawling chalets made of stone and timber, boasting Range Rovers and Jaguars and a perfect blend of manicured grounds and untamed shrubs and copses of trees.

  Nonsensically, the affluence gave Elise hope. As if finer china and Amex Centurion cards would spell Gracie having been misguidedly “borrowed” by entitled but good-hearted weekenders for the sole purpose of pampering her, feeding her good food, and putting her up in a bedroom filled with expensive toys. She was their treasured guest, to be cossetted and revered until her hosts grew bored and decided to drop her back at the upended canoe.

  Elise allowed herself the vision of Gracie, freshly bathed and dressed in fluffy pajamas, surrounded by oversized versions of her tiny animals, all of them lined up and hopeful for hugs. Gracie staring at them, arms crossed, patiently explaining, “There is a rule.”

  She glanced at Matt to see if he shared her vision. But this area was nothing special to him. This wealth was normal.

  The car stopped at a screen of ragged spruce trees that only partially hid them from a dilapidated house. Torn blinds lined the upper windows. The garage roof—corrugated metal fuzzy with rust—sagged in the middle and the faded yellow siding was filthy. In no way did this cottage fit in with the multimillion-dollar homes nearby. Beneath an expos
ed electrical meter, a tired Big Wheel. Everything about it felt tragic.

  Elise’s eyes bored into the metal siding as if she might be able to see through to the interior.

  Dorsey typed something into the computer and an aerial view of the street popped up.

  “Why are we just sitting here?” Elise asked.

  “Few more officers about to arrive.”

  “Shouldn’t we wait someplace less visible?” she said.

  Matt’s leg jiggled up and down with nerves. “Elise . . .”

  “Here they come.”

  A local police cruiser pulled up and parked just ahead of them. The two cops from the first night nodded to Dorsey and got out, walked around the side of the house.

  Dorsey started out of the car. “You folks sit tight here.”

  “But I want to see her,” said Elise.

  “If it’s her, you’ll see her.”

  An undercover car pulled up and Dorsey walked over to lean in the window. There was too much action on the street. Anyone inside only had to glance outside.

  “I don’t like this,” said Elise, fingers on the door handle. “Why are they all just hanging around?”

  “Let them do their thing,” said Matt.

  An explosion of barking came from behind the solid wooden fence. A voice from inside, a woman’s, shouted at the dog.

  “Great. Now she knows her property’s crawling with cops.”

  “They know what they’re doing, Elise.”

  “They’re small town, Matt. An abduction would happen, like, never.”

  Elise opened her door and Matt grabbed her arm. “Stay here like he said!”

  Dorsey and one of the undercover cops started up the driveway. Elise shook Matt off and bolted across the grass to join them. The sound of a television grew louder and louder. Cartoon voices.

  Dorsey, halfway up the sagging steps, turned. “Elise. Get into the car. Please.”

  “I can’t.” She ran past him to the door. Through a dirty diamond-shaped window, Elise could see the backs of two heads. An old woman and a young girl sat there watching cartoons. Only the very top of the girl’s head was visible. Elise couldn’t breathe. The light was dim in the room, to be sure, but the child’s hair—that beigey undertone with streaks of white. “I think it’s Gracie,” she whispered.