by Timothy Zahn
"I've already covered them," Roger muttered, his annoyance fading into guilt at his outburst. "Sorry.
I'm just..."
She squeezed his hand under the blankets. "I know," she said quietly. "I was just thinking out loud."
"Well, don't stop now," he said. "I'm at a dead end myself."
"All right," she said hesitantly. "Well. He wasn't on a ladder—you'd have seen that—and he wasn't on a rope, because of the roof overhang. Suction cups?"
Roger shook his head. "He seemed short, but reasonably bulky. Any suction cups strong enough to hold him up ought to have been visible."
"Short but bulky," Caroline repeated thoughtfully. "Like the man who gave Melantha to us last night?"
"I wondered that, too," Roger said. "But this one seemed smaller, and not nearly so bulky."
"And the gun's gone."
"The gun's gone," Roger confirmed. "I assume Melantha took it."
"Why?"
"How should I know?" he growled. "Maybe it's a real gun that just needs a special trick to work."
"I don't think it's a real gun," Caroline said slowly. "You saw how she was sitting up on the couch, wide awake, scared to death. If she'd had a weapon, I think she'd have had it ready."
"So where did it go?" Roger objected. "It didn't just evaporate."
"I don't know," Caroline said. "Do you want to go look for it now?"
Roger sighed. "No, we can do it in the morning. Let's try to get some sleep."
"All right," Caroline said, squeezing his hand again. "Good night."
"Again," Roger reminded her dryly. "Let's hope it takes this time."
"Yes." She paused. "That was very brave of you, you know. Going out there all alone."
"That was very stupid of me, you mean," Roger corrected. "Still, my life insurance is paid up."
He felt her stiffen beside him. Wrong thing to say, apparently. "Sleep well," she murmured.
"You too," he said. Rolling onto his side, he punched his pillow into shape and tried to settle in.
But before he did so, he reached to the floor and made sure the kitchen knives were within easy reach. Just in case.
Caroline lay quietly in the darkness, listening as Roger's breathing settled down into the slow, even rhythm of sleep. Usually, she was the one who could drop off at a moment's notice; but tonight, the pattern seemed to have been reversed. Now she was the one lying fully awake, staring at the light seeping around the edges of the curtains, ears straining for the slightest unusual sound. But their mysterious visitor had apparently moved on.
Roger's flippant comment about his life insurance hadn't helped, either.
She spent half an hour listening to the soft noises of the traffic below before finally giving up.
Sliding carefully out of bed, she snagged her robe and slipped out of the bedroom.
Melantha was still on the couch, a half-twisted figure wrapped in her blankets. For a moment Caroline wondered if she might be more willing to talk if Roger wasn't present. But the girl needed her sleep, too. Turning back to the kitchen, she flipped on the microwave's nightlight setting and opened the junk drawer.
Roger had told her he'd put the gun under her latch-hook equipment. Lifting up that last half-finished project, she pulled it out and set it aside.
The gun was gone, all right. She probed with her fingers, wondering if it could have worked its way underneath something else. Roger could call this junk if he wanted to; but to her, everything in here had a history, something that reminded her of a time or event in their life together. There was the black Phillips-head screw that had gotten lost from the old bentwood rocking chair they'd given to Caroline's sister when her baby was born. There were the two partially used rolls of plastic tape left over from last Christmas, Roger having started the second when he missed seeing there was one already in use. In the months since then, they hadn't managed to work either of them down to where it could be thrown away.
Her searching fingers paused. There in the center of the drawer, beside the box of rubber bands and twist-ties, was a large brooch.
She picked it up and angled it toward the light. It was a beautiful thing, a dozen silver leaves woven into two concentric circles, with a violet stone in the center, all tied together by a delicate silver filigree mesh. It was about three inches across and heavier than it looked, with the kind of weight that could easily tear a blouse if it wasn't fastened properly.
She'd never seen it before in her life.
She hefted it in her hand. Too heavy to be silver, she decided. White gold or platinum? She peered at the back, but aside from a rather elaborate and antique-looking pin arrangement there was nothing there.
But at the same time, there was something about it that tweaked at her memory. Something that seemed oddly familiar.
The connection didn't come. Giving up, she set it aside on the counter and slid the junk drawer back in. Then, from the drawer under the telephone, she pulled out the Manhattan phone book and carried it to the table.
Gre, Melantha had started to say the previous night when asked her last name. Green, Caroline had guessed, and Melantha had reluctantly confirmed it. She didn't want to send the girl back to whatever it was she'd run away from, and in fact had more or less promised herself that she wouldn't. But it was becoming increasingly clear that there would be no way of resolving this without talking to someone on the other end of the situation.
Of course, even if she found Melantha's family, what then? Take their word for what was going on?
Insist on counseling, or that Family Services be brought in before she and Roger would return Melantha?
Roger wouldn't want to do that, of course. Roger hated confrontations, and would go to incredible lengths to avoid them. That was one of the things that had first attracted her to him, in fact. He'd been a welcome relief from the overgrown teenagers and macho types who went around with permanent chips stapled to their shoulders.
But there was a world of difference between being meek and gentle and simply playing doormat for rude and uncaring idiots. Sometimes she wondered if Roger really understood that difference.
With a sigh, she put that particular group of frustrations out of her mind and opened to the G's. There were more Greens than she'd expected, covering three full pages and half of a fourth. Snagging a notepad and pen, she started making a list of all those living within walking distance of the alley where they'd found her.
She was finished with the first page when she noticed something strange. She was midway down the third when the second oddity struck her. By the time she made it to the end, she was almost ready to wake up Roger and show him.
But sleep was finally starting to tug at her eyelids. Anyway, there was nothing they could do about it in the middle of the night. Tucking her notes into the phone book, she replaced it in its drawer and turned off the light.
Roger had taken over the middle of the bed in her absence. Easing her way in beside him, she pressed gently against his side until he grunted in his sleep and rolled over.
Three minutes later, with the sounds of passing cars beating softly against her ears, she fell asleep.
5
The rest of Roger's night passed restlessly, crowded with strange dreams and punctuated by long intervals of lying awake listening to the wind outside their window. At one point he had the impression that Caroline was gone, but the next time he awoke she was back where she was supposed to be.
It made for a hazy sort of grogginess the next morning that even a hot shower couldn't completely eradicate. He could smell the coffee as he shaved, and hoped Caroline was making it strong.
Not only was she making coffee, he discovered as he emerged from the bedroom into the kitchen, but she'd pulled out all the stops on breakfast as well. Along with coffee and orange juice, the table was loaded with bacon, bagels, grapes, slices of cheese, and a nearly depleted plate of scrambled eggs. Caroline was at the stove, busily scrambling another batch.
It was a far cry
from the bagels and granola bars that were their normal breakfast, but the reason for the feast wasn't hard to guess. Melantha was already at the table, digging in with an energy only a preteen hitting a growth spurt could manage.
"Morning, Roger," Caroline greeted him, giving him a tentative sort of smile. "You sleep well?"
"Pretty good," he fibbed, sitting down across from Melantha. "Good morning, Melantha."
The girl's mouth was full, but she gave him a smile in return. The smile, he noted, didn't reach all the way to her eyes.
"Had a little excitement last night, didn't we?" he commented casually as Caroline left her eggscrambling long enough to pour him a cup of coffee. Such restaurant-style service, too, was out of the ordinary. "I hope you weren't scared."
"No," Melantha said, not looking at him as she cut a triangle of cheese with her fork and shoveled the last bite of her eggs on top of it.
"You got back to sleep all right afterward?"
"Uh-huh," she said. "Caroline, can I have some more eggs?"
"Of course," Caroline said. "Help yourself. If you don't mind waiting, Roger?"
"No, go ahead and finish them off," Roger said.
"Thank you," Melantha said, and scraped the rest of the eggs onto her plate.
Roger watched her out of the corner of his eye as he poured himself some juice. Once again, he noted, she'd evaded his questions.
But this time, at least, he hadn't come away completely empty-handed. The most obvious question she should have asked was what he'd been doing on the balcony in the first place. The fact that she hadn't asked it implied she already knew.
Perhaps she sensed his eyes on her. "On second thought," the girl said suddenly, "I think I'd rather have a shower instead. May I?"
"Certainly," Caroline said. "There are towels in the cabinet beside the tub."
"Thank you." Scooping a quick double forkful of eggs into her mouth, she got up from the table and disappeared down the hallway toward the bathroom.
"So much for questioning her," Roger said pointedly as Caroline piled the fresh batch of eggs onto the serving plate.
"She wouldn't have told us anything," Caroline said, picking up her own coffee cup and sitting down on the chair Melantha had just vacated. "Besides, this gives us a chance to talk." She glanced the direction Melantha had gone, then reached into her robe pocket and pulled out a piece of jewelry.
"Take a look."
Roger took it, frowning. It was a large pin of some sort, made of silver leaves and threads with a purple stone in the middle. It didn't look like anything he could remember Caroline ever wearing. "I take it it's not yours?"
"I'd never seen it before last night," Caroline confirmed. "The point is that I found it in the junk drawer, right where you said you'd put the gun."
Roger looked up under his eyebrows at her. "Are you suggesting," he said slowly, "that this is the gun?"
"It's about the right weight and color," Caroline said. Her voice was dogged, but Roger could sense her backpedaling from her position. If he thought it was ridiculous, and said so...
With an effort, he looked back at the pin in his hand. Yes, it was ridiculous. But no more ridiculous than anything else that had happened since they'd gone to that stupid play. "Let's assume it is," he said. "First and most obvious question: How?"
Caroline shrugged helplessly. "How does a man climb up the side of a building?"
"Touche," Roger admitted.
"I don't like it, either," Caroline said. "You ready for the next one?"
"Hang on." He took a long swallow of his coffee. She had, indeed, made it strong this morning.
"Okay, hit me."
"I went through the phone book last night," she said, getting up and pulling the directory from its drawer. "I thought we might be able to locate Melantha's family."
"With just the name 'Green' to go on?"
"I couldn't sleep anyway." Opening the directory, she pulled out a piece of notepaper and handed it to him. "Anyway, I found two very interesting addresses: one on Riverside Drive near 104th, the other on West 70th just off Central Park. Each of them lists over thirty Greens living there."
Roger frowned down at the paper. His first thought was that she must have double-counted some of the listings. But she'd have to have been really foggy to have double-counted that badly. "You have any reason to assume Melantha's from either building?"
"Not really," Caroline said. "I just thought it was strange enough to be worth mentioning."
"It's definitely that," he agreed. "The Riverside Drive address is closer to where we found her.
Maybe we should go check it out."
"We could," Caroline said, staring into her coffee cup. "But I keep thinking about the bruises on her throat. If her family didn't do that, why is she so reluctant to go back home? Or to even talk about them?"
"Good point," Roger conceded. He glanced at his watch and shoveled a last forkful of eggs into his mouth. "And speaking of going places, we need to get to work."
Caroline seemed to brace herself. "Actually, I thought I'd stay home today. Keep an eye on Melantha."
Roger blinked in surprise. Skipping work was a very un-Caroline thing to suggest. But under the circumstances—"Good idea," he said. "Maybe I should stay, too."
"No, that's all right," Caroline said. "We'll be fine."
"What if our midnight visitor comes back?"
"In broad daylight?" Caroline pointed out. "Besides, she might be more willing to talk just to me."
Roger felt his lip twitch. But she was right. "Fine," he grunted. "See what you can get out of her."
Picking up the pin, he dropped it into his pocket.
"You're taking the brooch with you?"
"I thought I might look in on one of those Green-intensive buildings at lunchtime," he told her. "If this does have something to do with Melantha, it might help prove we have her."
"Ah," Caroline said, her tone suddenly odd. "You think it would be better if we both went later?"
In other words, you don't think I can handle it? "I'll be fine," he said instead. "You concentrate on Melantha; I'll take the outside world."
"All right," she said in that same odd tone. "Just be careful, will you? This whole thing is very strange."
He snorted as he stood up. "That, sweetheart, is the understatement of the month."
She managed a faint smile at that one. "You'll call later?"
"At lunchtime," Roger promised, circling the table to give her a quick kiss. "And you call me if anything happens here."
"Don't worry," she said. "We'll be fine."
He brooded about it all the way to the office, barely noticing the overcast sky or the as-usual crammed subway. This thing with Melantha was bad enough; but what was worse, he couldn't seem to figure out Caroline these days, either. One minute she would be fine, and the next she would be looking like a bug that had been stepped on.
Was this some kind of woman thing? Or was it just Melantha?
The sun was starting to peek more cheerfully through the clouds by the time he reached his office.
But his own dark mood persisted; and after an hour and a half of blankly pushing papers around he finally gave up. Nothing was going to get done, he realized glumly, until the Melantha problem was cleared up.
Five minutes later, he was back on the street. Of the two addresses Caroline had ferreted out, the one near Central Park was the closer. He might as well start there.
The building turned out to be a modest little four-story place on a tree-lined street within view of the park, with a stone stairway that led up a half dozen steps from the sidewalk to a landing and then made a right-angle turn and continued another half dozen steps to the entrance foyer itself. An interesting anomaly struck him as he approached the building: unlike most of those he could see on the street, this one didn't have bars on its ground-floor windows.
There was a young man sitting on the top step, idly rubbing his fingers together and gazing down the street. "Can I
help you?" he called as Roger started up the steps.
"Possibly," Roger said. The man looked to be in his early thirties, not exactly the sort Roger would expect to see hanging around doing nothing in the middle of a workday. He was slender with black hair and smooth, darkish skin that reminded him of Melantha's own Mediterranean complexion. He also had something of her exotic eyes, too. "I'm looking for someone named Green."
"Really," the other said. His voice was casual enough, but Roger had the distinct feeling that he was being scrutinized, as if visiting strangers were uncommon.
Still, this was New York, where people were naturally aloof. "Yes, really," he said, stopping at the midway landing. "I understand there are some Greens living at this address."
"Actually, all four apartments are owned by Greens," the man said. "Which one are you looking for?"
Roger frowned up at the building. "Four apartments?" he repeated. "That's all?"
"Isn't that enough for a building this size?" the other countered. His tone was faintly jocular, but there was no humor in his eyes.
"Must be really big families," Roger said. "I was given to understand there are over thirty Greens living here."
"Ah," the other said, nodding. "Actually, it's just a matter of thirty phone lines coming in. Two of the families run specialized solicitation services for one of the banks—Chase Manhattan, I think."
"Interesting," Roger said. That story might satisfy the casual passerby, but he knew better. "So this building is zoned for business?"
The other's eyes narrowed slightly. "I don't know anything about legal stuff."
"Maybe not," Roger said. "But I do."
"You a cop?"
Roger shook his head. "Just a concerned citizen."
"Concerned about zoning?" the man countered. "Or something else?"
It was as good an opening, Roger decided, as he was likely to get. "Actually, I'm looking for one particular family," he said, throwing a casual glance back at the sidewalk behind him to make sure there was no one within eavesdropping distance. "A family who might have misplaced a young girl Wednesday night," he continued, turning back to the man.
