Birthday Girl

by Matthew Iden

  Amy made a sound and put a hand to her mouth. Elliott put an arm around her and squeezed. “There’s always hope.”

  “I suppose so.”

  Her husband approached them, shrugging on his jacket, unaware he’d lost his visitor badge. “Mary, I got to go. I have to clock in at five.”

  “I know, babe. I’ll be here.” They kissed, he gave Amy and Elliott a perfunctory nod, and walked out. Mary watched him go, then turned and smiled wanly at them. “He don’t mean to be rude. He’s worried about Tommy and don’t want to show it. At least I can cry about it.”

  “Well, you cry if you want.” Amy stroked her shoulder.

  “Would you . . . would you mind going back there with me?” Mary asked, looking at Amy with some embarrassment. “I know nothing’s changed, but it would sure help me.”

  Amy nodded at her in sympathy. “Sure, hon.”

  30

  Elliott

  They looked down at the small form. Jay Kelly, slender and inert, was dwarfed by the hospital bed. The light in the room was low, and Amy hesitantly leaned forward to confirm the boy was breathing. The IV tube seemed larger around than most of his veins, blue snakes that stood out under the snow-white skin of his arms and his temples. I’ve never seen wrists so thin, Elliott thought.

  He tore his eyes away to take a closer look at a cardiac monitor that stood guard next to the bed, its red and yellow lights blinking garishly in the gloom. Elliott knew enough about medicine that the graph should show an uninterrupted sawtooth edge, but all he saw here was an erratic line of peaks and valleys, no two of them alike. He watched the monitor for a moment, then turned to the IV stand. Two bags of fluid were linked to the same line. Being careful not to touch them, he peered at their labels.

  “Saline and naloxone,” he said softly.

  “Naloxone?”

  “An overdose inhibitor for opioids. Cops see so many ODs on the street that they carry inhalers of it now. It might’ve been what saved Jay’s life. The hospital keeps the dose going and steps it down gradually until the opioid wears off.”

  “Opioid? Like fentanyl?”

  “Yes.”

  “It fits the profiles of the other children.”

  Elliott nodded, then his eyes caught something over Amy’s shoulder. She turned. Jay, eyes open and cavernous, was looking at them. His mouth opened but no sound emerged.

  Amy moved closer to the bed, pulling a stool with her. “Jay? Jay, please don’t be afraid. You’re safe now.”

  Jay’s eyelids sank to half-mast, then floated up again. He rolled his head around on the pillow to get a wider view of his room, then coughed, a dry, racking sound. Elliott grabbed a large Styrofoam cup from a nearby table and held it for Jay to take a sip. The boy craned his neck to drink, then fell back onto the pillow.

  His face a mask of exhaustion, he said, “Where am I?”

  “You’re in Mercy General, a hospital. Do you know where that is?”

  Jay nodded.

  “You probably want your parents, don’t you? They’re not here right now, but I’m sure they’ll be back later.”

  Elliott glanced toward the open door of the room and the bright light of the hallway, but there was no one there, only the slight sound of beeping and whirring of medical electronics.

  Amy put her hand gently on Jay’s arm. “Honey, you don’t know me, and I bet it’s very hard to trust anyone right now, but I have a really important question. Do you think you’re strong enough to talk a little bit?”

  He nodded. “I think so.”

  “The police found you in a bad part of the city just a day or so ago. You’ve been missing for almost four years. Everyone seems to think you were living on the streets, but my friend Mr. Nash here and I have a different theory. We think you were being held somewhere. Can you tell us . . .” Amy sighed and Elliott heard almost a year of sadness and anxiety in that simple sound. “Can you tell us if we’re right?”

  Jay’s eyes welled up, and a single large tear spilled from each to run down his cheeks. Shoulders jerking up and down, he began to cry silently. Amy stroked his arm, making soothing noises that meant nothing and everything at once. In the middle of his tears, he nodded once, twice, then continued to nod in time to his breaths until they were a spasm.

  Amy let him go for a minute until the sobs tapered off. “I’m so sorry to make you remember this, but were there other children with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you tell me their names?”

  Jay took a deep, guttural breath, closed his eyes, and threw his head back into the pillow. “Charlotte, Buddy, Tina, and Maggie.”

  She swallowed. “There wasn’t . . . a girl named Lacey?”

  “No.”

  Amy turned to Elliott, panic on her face. “Those weren’t their real names, were they, Jay?” he asked. His voice sounded squeezed and unnatural to his own ears.

  He shook his head. “No. My name is—” His face twisted. “My name was Charlie. We weren’t allowed to use our real names or we’d be punished.”

  “Who would punish you, Jay?”

  “Sister.”

  “Who is Sister?”

  “She . . . she’s the one who kept us.”

  Surprised, Amy glanced at Elliott, mouthing the word, She? He shrugged, as baffled as she was.

  She turned back to Jay. “Who was the oldest?”

  “Sister. By a lot.”

  “I mean, of the children.”

  Jay gestured weakly toward his chest.

  “Then . . . Charlotte, right? How old was she?”

  “About ten or eleven?” he said, uncertain.

  “What did she look like, Jay?”

  “Small. Thin. Blonde like you.”

  Amy’s breath caught. “This next question is very, very important, Jay. Did Charlotte ever tell you her real name?”

  Jay turned his head on the pillow and looked at the wall, his lips tight.

  “You won’t be punished, Jay,” Elliott said, gently putting a hand on the thin shoulder. “Sister can’t reach you here.”

  The young teen’s voice cracked as he said, “We were best friends. She’s the only reason I lasted as long as I . . . as I . . .”

  Amy, unable to help herself, grabbed his thin, bony wrist. “Please, honey. What was her name?”

  Jay groaned. “She’s still back there. I don’t . . . don’t . . .”

  His voice trailed off as his face suddenly clenched like a fist, then his eyelids fluttered crazily as his eyes rolled back in his head. The cardiac monitor’s soft beeps changed to a high-pitched squeal as the boy’s body was racked with convulsions.

  “Oh my god,” Amy said, recoiling.

  Elliott dashed out into the hall, looking for a nurse, but two were already rounding the counter of the floor station and heading his way. He waved them to go faster as they sprinted down the hall. “Hurry!”

  He stepped back as they ran into the room, pushing Amy out of the way as they got to work.

  Without looking up from what she was doing, one of the nurses asked, “Are you with the family?”

  “Not exactly,” Elliott said. “We’re out-of-town friends of the Kellys. We heard that Jay had been found and wanted to come see him as soon as we could.”

  “Wait by the station, please,” she said, her mouth a flat line. “All visitors are supposed to be cleared before visiting the boy.”

  “I’m sorry, we had no idea,” Elliott said, backing out and tugging at Amy’s arm. “We’ll wait for you to come back.”

  “Did we do that to him?” she asked as he hustled them down the corridor.

  “No,” Elliott said, his voice angry, uneven. The sounds of the shrieking cardiac monitor chased them down the hall. “This . . . Sister did it. He’s in good hands now. But we have to get out of here.”

  Amy stopped suddenly, grabbing a fistful of his shirt. “Elliott, he knows,” she whispered fiercely. “Lacey’s alive and he knows where she is.”

  “Yes, she’s
alive,” Elliott said, almost not believing it himself. He turned his head away as they passed the PIMC nurses’ station and kept walking, dragging Amy with him. “But we can’t go back, if that’s what you’re thinking. That boy’s got no more idea where she is than we do. And it’s not going to matter if we don’t get out of here.”

  The bank of elevators was within sight, through a set of open double doors. Next to the elevators was a single door with a stair icon. As he steered Amy toward the elevator, they heard a voice behind them call out, “Sir? One second, please.”

  Elliott glanced back to see a nurse from the station looking at him. He waved back congenially.

  Overhead, the PA system crackled to life. “Dr. Hahn to PIMC, please. Dr. Hahn to PIMC. Code Red.”

  “Stairs,” he said tightly to Amy.

  “Sir! Stop right there,” the nurse called and began jogging down the hall toward them.

  Amy banged open the stairwell door with a hip and they sprinted down the three flights in a dizzying circle, their feet making slapping sounds with each step. As they reached the ground floor, Elliott grabbed Amy’s arm as she went to bash open the first-floor door.

  “Walk,” he hissed. “Look normal.”

  He took her hand, then opened the door calmly. They were in a far corner of the pediatric lobby. Elliott led the way across the lobby to the exit, wincing as the door banged shut behind them. Several people glanced up, then went back to whispering or reading or watching TV. Set on reaching the exit, they skirted the pediatric intake desk and passed through the middle of the rows of chairs.

  “Is your little girl all right?” They both jumped, then looked down to see Mary, the mother of little Tommy, looking up at them with a wan smile. They’d walked right past her without realizing it.

  “Mary! Yes. She’s being discharged tomorrow,” Amy said. Behind them, a phone at the intake desk blooped. Elliott watched as the receptionist answered, then stood with a hand cupped over the mouthpiece of the phone as she scanned the room.

  Mary frowned. “I thought they were letting her go tonight?”

  “Oh, I wish,” Amy responded with a weak laugh. “You know doctors, changing their minds.”

  The receptionist looked their way, nodded, then said something into the phone. Elliott tugged at Amy’s hand.

  “I’m sorry, Mary,” Amy said as they pulled away. “We’ve got to run. We both have to work tomorrow. We’ll be praying for you and Tommy.”

  “Thank you,” the woman said, smiling but confused.

  The door clacked open and a burly man—bad comb-over, white shirt and navy-blue pants, hospital security badge—came through, his eyes scanning the lobby.

  “Go,” Elliott said, shoving Amy in the direction of the doors. Behind them, the guard yelled.

  They burst through the doors and ran down the sidewalk toward the parking garage where they’d stashed the Celica. They’d been lucky to find a spot on the first level, but it was deep in the back of the open-air building, and Elliott was winded by the time they reached it.

  He cursed as he waited for Amy to get into the passenger side, watching the entrance of the garage with a feeling of dread. There was no sign of the burly security guard. Elliott jumped in as Amy slid into the driver’s seat. She slammed the key into the ignition, turned it . . . and nothing happened.

  “No, no, no, no, no! Please, oh please. Not now,” Amy chanted, turning the key in the ignition again.

  Elliott watched out the window for the guard, but saw only the yawning entrance of the garage.

  “Maybe they’re not coming?” Amy said hopefully.

  “Don’t count on it.”

  Amy tried four more times, but each time the ignition simply taunted them with a rapid clicking noise, refusing to start. Elliott frowned, then cracked the door open. The distant sound of sirens cut through the air.

  “Elliott . . . ,”Amy said, her voice panicky.

  “Cops are on their way,” he said, opening the door all the way. “Let’s go.”

  “Go where?”

  “Anywhere. Nowhere. Wherever we can to help Lacey,” he said, grabbing his knapsack and jumping out of the car. Amy crawled out after him, then they vaulted the low pony wall that ran along the garage. They slipped into the darkness as the first of three squad cars came screaming through the main hospital entrance, lights flashing and tires squealing.

  31

  Charlotte

  Charlotte played with the key in her pocket obsessively, running the tips of her fingers over the key and back again to feel the dull teeth, the gaps, the skeletal stem. The brass absorbed the heat from her fingers and grew warm, feeling alive in her hand.

  It was early afternoon and everyone was napping, leaving the house quiet save for a distant scratching sound coming from above her head. Sister had told them a branch had fallen onto the roof and that it would blow off eventually, but Buddy had whispered to Maggie that it was the body of a dead bird, its dead claws catching on the shingles as the wind toyed with it.

  Maggie had gone hysterical and Charlotte had yelled at Buddy for the lie, but now she had trouble getting the image of a big black bird, a wing jutting skyward, being blown back and forth on the roof, out of her mind.

  The door to Sister’s room, thick-paneled oak reminiscent of the front door, sat in front of her like a wall. The oak’s grain was wing shaped, and the image of the bird appeared again. She shivered and pushed the picture out of her mind.

  The lock and knob were of chunky brass. Verdigris had gathered in the simple ridges of the escutcheon, but the egg-shaped knob was as polished and bright as a lamp. Charlotte pulled the key out of her pocket and examined it.

  Over the course of several days, she’d tried it in nearly every lock she could find on the first floor and in the basement, but either the locks were too new and couldn’t fit the fat barrel or, for the few original locks left in the house, the key simply didn’t fit. She’d nearly despaired, thinking that Charlie had found a key without a lock and simply hung on to it as a good luck charm.

  Lying awake in bed, however, she’d listened as Sister rose early. There were the everyday sounds of her getting dressed and ready for work, then the sound of the door to her room being unlocked, shut, then relocked. The flat, smacking sounds were unlike the sharp clicks of the front door—a thick bolt was being moved, requiring a thick key to move it. Which is when she decided, with a pounding heart, that the key must fit the one place she hadn’t dared try.

  The idea alone had paralyzed her with fear. Tina might catch her. Or what if Sister had covered the room with traps or telltales? Charlotte had trouble even imagining the punishment. But it was the last place the key could fit.

  She slid it into the keyhole and turned.

  The bolt slid back with a loud snap that made her gasp.

  Charlotte snatched the key out of the hole, ready to run if one of the others had heard the sound and came to investigate. But a minute passed without a sound. She slipped the key back in her pocket, then placed a hand on the door. Her hand shook and her arm twitched involuntarily. In her imagination, the panels were hot and beating like a giant heart under her hand. She closed her eyes briefly, then pushed on the door, and went into the room.

  There was someone on the other side, moving in the glum light.

  She gave a small cry, thinking somehow, impossibly, that it was Sister. Then she realized the door faced a mirror across the room; she was looking at herself. Moving quickly, she slipped inside, her heart pounding, and closed the door behind her. The room went black and she fumbled for the light switch, then looked around.

  Disappointment flooded her. She’d held out hope that this had been Charlie’s plan, that maybe Sister’s room was different and the windows weren’t boarded up, making an escape as simple as jumping or making a rope out of sheets like she’d seen in the movies. And there were two windows in the room, but they were boarded like all the others in the house, which explained why it was so dark. She sighed and looked
around anyway.

  Most of the space was taken up by a queen-size bed with spiraled posts that reached almost to the ceiling. At its foot was a trunk, a block of peeling black leather and brass fittings. Next to the mirror was a simple dresser with flared brass drawer pulls. Sister had her own bathroom, but it was tiny, smaller than the one Charlotte shared with the others, and was filled with a medicinal smell.

  She paced the room, eyeing the trunk, but she was drawn to the dresser. Propped on top were a series of old pictures in tripod frames. A department store portrait of a woman with thick glasses and a ruffled blouse. A class picture of a grade-school group.

  The largest was of a family, fuzzy and tinted in the too-vivid colors of a bygone process. A woman in a lime-green dress and a bouffant hairdo stood in front of a large farmhouse, holding a baby. A young oak sprouted next to the house. Gray, indistinct woods appeared in the background.

  Next to the woman stood a man in a white T-shirt and jeans, with slicked-back hair and an ironic twist to his mouth. One hip was cocked, making his stance casual, sarcastic. His hand was blurry, caught in motion somewhere between his waist and his chin. Charlotte looked closer and thought she made out the glow of a cigarette; he hadn’t bothered to stop smoking for the picture.

  To the woman’s left was a row of children, lined up in descending order like Russian dolls. The first was a young girl, leggy and serious, wearing a spring dress with saddle shoes and short, frilly socks. Her hair was in pigtails and her hands were clasped primly in front of her, but her eyes were so dark they seemed like pinholes in the paper. Next to her was a boy, hair slicked back in imitation of the man’s. Then a boy, two more girls, and another boy, their faces indistinct. No one was smiling.

  Charlotte stared at the picture for a long time until, shaking her head, she forced herself away from the dresser. She couldn’t afford to linger. A quick search showed the bureau was full of underwear, socks, and hose, all neatly folded and arranged. The closet held business clothes. Charlotte recognized all of them as Sister’s work outfits.