Somebody's Daughter

by David Bell

  And then . . . who?

  Her skin felt sticky, her knees weak.

  She unplugged her phone and took it with her to the front of the house.

  chapter

  forty

  1:40 A.M.

  “What is it, Tiffany?” Griffin asked. “Do you recognize the person in the photo?”

  “That’s her,” Tiffany said.

  “What do you mean?” Griffin asked, her voice level. She wanted to let Tiffany Flowers reach her own conclusions, not influence them in any way with her own behavior. And she hoped like hell Tiffany hadn’t been influenced by anything she’d seen on the news that day. “Do you know this woman from somewhere?”

  Tiffany stared at the photo on the screen again, her eyebrows furrowed. Griffin watched as the light went on.

  “This is her . . . ,” Tiffany said. “This . . .”

  “Where do you recognize this woman from?”

  Her face started to crumple. It began with tears filling her eyes, and then her mouth turning down above a puckered chin. Her cheeks flushed bright red. “This is the woman who spoke to me that day. Right before Stacey disappeared.”

  “Are you sure?” Griffin asked. “You haven’t seen her anywhere else.”

  “Her hair is shorter than it was then. She looks older. She wore sunglasses that day, but she flipped them up when she spoke to me, pushed them on top of her head, so I could see her eyes.” She pointed at the phone. “That’s her.”

  “This is the woman who spoke to you on the street before your daughter disappeared?”

  Tiffany wiped at her eyes. Repeatedly. Griffin looked around for tissues but didn’t see any. Tiffany dropped the phone onto the couch and stood up. She walked out of the room but quickly came back with a box of tissues and started wiping her face. She resumed her place on the end of the couch.

  Griffin picked up the phone, took a quick glance at Erica Frazier’s picture, and then put it away. “Are you sure about this?” she asked.

  “I am. How could I forget that face, even after all this time?”

  “Have you seen the news today?” Griffin asked.

  Tiffany shook her head. Back and forth. Back and forth. “I don’t watch the news. Too sad. Too depressing.”

  “You don’t know this woman from anywhere else?” Griffin asked.

  “No. I swear.”

  After the words came out, Tiffany Flowers bent double, her slender body folding in half, her chest touching her knees as she leaned forward on the couch. A long, continuous sob emerged, one that made Griffin fear the woman would hyperventilate.

  Not certain of what to do, Griffin reached out, placing her hand on Tiffany’s thigh. She doubted the woman could feel it. They sat like that for a moment until that first long, silent sob passed. The tears came out in full force as though springing from a deep well. Ten years’ worth, Griffin figured. The wound may have scabbed at some point, but it hadn’t really healed.

  “I’m going to get you some water.”

  She stood up from the couch, taking her bearings and trying to find the kitchen. Before she moved that way, a woman filled the doorway. She looked to be about sixty, her hair dyed an unnatural color of red, a floral robe belted tight across her waist. Griffin saw the resemblance in the set of the eyes, the shape of the mouth, the lean, sinewy body. The mama bear glare directed at Griffin over the sound of her daughter’s sobs.

  “What is this?” she asked.

  Griffin introduced herself, showed her badge. She explained what had happened and why she was there so late at night. The woman listened, still keeping her distance from her daughter as though she’d started to demonstrate the symptoms of a highly infectious disease instead of the deadly pain of grief.

  “You’re kidding me,” she said. No one seemed to know what to say.

  “I was going to get Tiffany some water.”

  The woman jerked her thumb over her shoulder toward the kitchen sink. As Griffin left the room, Tiffany’s mother moved toward her daughter, bending down and placing her arm around her.

  “It’s okay, honey,” she said. “Shhh. It’s okay. Don’t let this get you down.”

  Griffin went out to the clean, cramped kitchen. She started opening cabinets, feeling like an intruder, and found a blue plastic tumbler with the University of Kentucky logo on it. She filled it from the tap. When she went back into the living room, the two women were in the same position, mother comforting daughter and daughter unable to speak coherently.

  Griffin bent down and held the cup in front of Tiffany’s face. She didn’t react.

  But her mother did.

  She made a quick, swiping gesture with her arm, backhanding the cup out of Griffin’s hands and sending it to the floor. The water splashed across the side of Griffin’s body and across the carpet.

  “What are you doing this for?” she asked.

  Griffin’s instincts took over. She stood up, took a step back. Her hands went out in front of her, prepared for either defense or offense. “Ma’am,” she said, “calm down. Easy.”

  “I will not calm down.” But her voice had lost some of its heat. She looked Griffin over, her eyes wide and angry. She shook her head, her face full of several varieties of regret. “Why did you come here? Look what you’ve done. Look at her, will you?”

  Tiffany remained bent over, her face obscured, but the soft sobbing sounds let Griffin know she was still crying.

  “I’m here to investigate the disappearance of a missing child,” she said. “I know it’s upsetting, but I have to ask these questions. There’s a child in grave danger right now. That’s my job.”

  “Where’ve you been the last ten years? Not here, that’s for damn sure. Not here while she cried herself to sleep at night. Not here while she regretted taking a shower and not locking the door. Fifteen minutes that shattered the next decade. You weren’t here for any of that.”

  Griffin’s posture relaxed. She lowered her hands. “I’m sorry. But there’s a child missing, a child who might be Tiffany’s, and I had to know.” Griffin quickly explained about Felicity, about the possibility Erica had been the one to take Stacey all those years ago. “We don’t know for sure, but it’s all over the news now. This gives us something concrete to go on.”

  “Then go. You can get out. And don’t come back.”

  Griffin stared down at the two of them. “Tiffany, is there anything else you want to tell me about this? Anything I should know?”

  The woman made no response. She remained in the folded position, her mother tending her, so Griffin made her move for the door.

  “Do you think this is real?” the mother asked. “This might be Stacey?”

  Griffin realized she didn’t even know the woman’s name. It wasn’t the best time to ask.

  “You have to consider all of this tenuous for now,” Griffin said. “But we’re going to look into it. I’ll call you when I know more.”

  “And that woman in the news? The one with the missing girl?”

  “What about her?”

  The woman’s eyes smoldered with anger. “Nail her. Nail the bitch for what she did to us.”

  chapter

  forty-one

  1:47 A.M.

  As Angela walked to the door, her mind raced with possibilities.

  Michael? Erica? Lynn? The police?

  She stepped over to the window and lifted her hand, parting the curtains as she had when the cops arrived hours earlier. Her eyes drifted over the driveway, making note of the space next to her car, which was now occupied by Gail’s Lexus instead of Michael’s SUV. She silently cursed him, wishing her legs were long enough to kick his butt from where she stood. She took deep, Zen-like breaths, reminding herself it was far better to be married to a man who cared about others, who would drop everything to help a person in distress, than to be married to someone
who simply didn’t give a shit. She had friends in marriages like that.

  Then she turned her head to the door and saw the man. He stood in the porch light, his hands thrust into the pockets of his light jacket. Flying insects swirled around in the muggy air, and the man reached up and brushed one away. Then he saw Angela’s face staring at him.

  Angela jumped back, a little gasp escaping her lips.

  She recognized his shape and clothes. He was the man she had seen walking by earlier when she got off the phone with Gail.

  Was he another cop? He didn’t look like one. Unlike the pair of detectives who’d shown up earlier in their business attire, this man wore jeans, tennis shoes, and a light blue polo shirt in addition to the jacket.

  Maybe he just had the wrong house. Maybe he was lost.

  But how likely was that? How many lost wanderers showed up at their door in the suburbs?

  And why had he walked by earlier?

  The man knocked again. Harder. She thought she heard him saying something, his voice muffled by the closed and locked door.

  Locked? She hoped it was locked.

  Angela checked, saw the dead bolt turned in the correct, locked position, and took a breath of relief. She swallowed hard, choking down saliva that felt like a golf ball.

  Angela heard Gail coming toward her, her light footsteps echoing in the quiet house.

  “Who’s there?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.” Angela reached for her phone, sliding it out of her jeans pocket. “But I’m calling the police. It’s some guy, and there’s too much weird shit going on.”

  The man knocked again, and Gail moved past Angela and parted the curtains. When she did, she made a low grunting noise.

  “What? Is he leaving?”

  “No, no he’s not,” Gail said. “Can you put the phone down?”

  “What? Why?”

  “I think we need to talk to him,” Gail said.

  “You know him?” Angela asked. “Who is he? Is he a cop?”

  “Not that. Not exactly.” Gail let the curtain drop and moved toward the door. “But he is someone who can help explain what I came to tell you tonight. I’m going to let him in.”

  “Are you sure?” Angela felt her chest thump, felt an air bubble in her throat.

  “I’m not sure of anything,” Gail said. “But I’m going to let him in.”

  Gail moved to the door and unbolted the lock. She stepped back, swinging the door open and revealing the man without the screen of the window and the curtains.

  The man wasn’t tall or physically imposing. His thick brown hair was parted to the side, and his nose and chin both looked long and thin. His brown eyes shone in the porch light like two tiny marbles.

  “Who is this, Gail?” Angela asked.

  The man held up his hands in a gesture that said he didn’t mean any harm. “I just want to talk, Mrs. Frazier.” He cut his eyes toward Gail. “I didn’t know you had company. And company I actually know.”

  “Angela,” Gail said, “this is Mr. Jake Little.”

  Jake Little. The name registered in Angela’s brain.

  The cops. They’d asked about him earlier.

  “You know Erica somehow,” Angela said.

  “You could say that, yes.” He made an attempt at a smile. It looked unnatural and forced, but he’d tried. His voice was higher pitched than she expected and a bit nasal. “Erica and I dated for several years around the time Felicity was born and then again a couple of years ago. I know her very well, and I’ve spent a lot of time with Felicity.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I know all about your husband, about his and Erica’s marriage. She came here tonight, didn’t she? Looking for him?” He tilted his head, waiting for an answer, but there was a nervous energy in his eyes as they darted back and forth between the two women. When Angela didn’t offer one right away, he asked, his voice a little higher, “Are they still here? I’m assuming maybe they’re not. You know, Erica has always talked about moving away, about taking Felicity and starting over somewhere. Is it possible . . . ?”

  Angela took a step back again. But she wasn’t sure where she was going. “They’re not here. I know that.”

  “Anybody else here?” He craned his neck, as if he could see through the walls and floors to the rest of the house. “Anyone? Other family or whatever?”

  Angela didn’t want to answer him. “How do you know him, Gail? I don’t understand.”

  Before Gail spoke, Jake said, “Look, I want to find Erica. She won’t return my calls. But I thought she might have come here. I spent the whole day driving around Trudeau, going to the parks, the malls, the playgrounds, anywhere I thought I might see Felicity. Finally, I gave up and came here to find Erica. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  He lifted his hands in a gesture of futility, something that made him seem slightly sympathetic. Here was another person peripherally connected to events of the day, and he was every bit as confused and exasperated as the rest of them. His eyes continued to dart, bouncing back and forth like a Super Ball.

  “Gail, I don’t understand,” Angela said. “Can you tell me how you know each other?”

  The man started to say something but then stopped. He seemed to be contemplating what his next move would be, and he brought his hands together, rubbing them as though the night were cold instead of hot and humid.

  “Are you going to tell her, Gail?” he asked finally, his familiar tone with Angela’s mother-in-law striking.

  Gail? He called her Gail?

  When Gail didn’t reply, Angela said, “Gail knows Erica, of course.”

  The man nodded, the gesture bringing some of his brown hair down over his forehead. “She does. But she also knows me. Why don’t we go inside and talk more?”

  Angela felt like she was in a whirlpool, the waters swirling around her. She was reluctant to move or speak, but she said, “I don’t understand any of this yet.”

  “Your mother-in-law has been talking to Erica for years,” the man said, nodding again. “She knows everything that’s going on.”

  chapter

  forty-two

  1:55 A.M.

  “Do you want to go to the hospital?”

  Michael rode in the passenger seat of his own car, while Erica drove. They were back on the bypass, the car running fine other than a low grinding noise Michael couldn’t place and that seemed not to be affecting their forward progress. No warning lights glowed on the dashboard, and Erica gently increased the speed to fifty-five. Her window was down, another cigarette going.

  “I’ll get rid of it,” she said, tossing it away. “It’s gross. And you’re woozy.”

  He lifted his hand to his forehead. He made a tentative attempt to touch the spot where his face had made contact with the steering wheel.

  “Ow,” Michael said, finding the spot. He felt a small knot, one that would perhaps keep growing as the night went on. He touched it again. Not as bad but still sore. Tender. “It didn’t break the skin, I guess.”

  “Flip that light on.” Michael did, and Erica took a quick glance over. “It’s a little bigger than when we were outside, but not bad. It could have been worse, having that maniac grab the wheel like that.”

  “Yeah.” Michael chose his words carefully. “I can’t say I really blame him.”

  “What?”

  “We kind of kidnapped him, didn’t we? You zapped him with a stun gun. How was he supposed to react?”

  “But he clearly didn’t want to talk to the police, did he? If he had nothing to hide, why did he do that?” Erica kept her eyes on the road, her body hunched close to the steering wheel. She shook her head. “What about those clothes in the dresser? The little girl’s clothes?”

  “You’re right. I can’t explain his behavior.”

  “The cops should have pushed
him harder this morning,” she said, speaking with an authority and certainty that cut off the need for further conversation. “Why don’t you call them and let them know he ran off that way?”

  “Okay. Sure. I don’t think I need the hospital, by the way. But I wouldn’t mind some ice. And maybe ibuprofen or something. Next time we pass a gas station or store, let’s stop.”

  “Fine. I know where one is. It’s not far.”

  Michael adjusted his body, digging around in his pocket, looking for something. “Did you see my phone?”

  “Your phone?”

  “I used it, right? After the accident, wasn’t I on the phone? I called Angela. Shit, I barely remember what we talked about. She must think I’m a lunatic.”

  “I told her you were okay.”

  “You did? I bet she was thrilled.”

  “Not really.”

  “So where’s my phone, then?”

  “I think I gave it back to you. Check your pockets.”

  Michael felt around again. Then he ran his hands over the upholstery and down in the space between the seat and the door, feeling loose grit and dirt against his fingertips. He checked around his feet, but when he bent over that way, his head hurt. He could only do it so long, but he didn’t see the phone.

  “Shit. Did I drop it out there?” he asked. “I want to call Angela and tell her I’m okay. Where’s your phone?”

  Erica sighed in exasperation. “She knows you’re fine. Besides . . .”

  She left the thought unfinished.

  “Besides what?”

  “It’s nothing,” Erica said. “I shouldn’t say it.”

  “Say it.”

  “I was just wondering. . . . Do you think Angela would ever hurt someone? Do you know where she was this morning?”

  “Don’t say things like that,” Michael said, his voice sharp and firm. “You’re talking crazy. She was at work this morning, so don’t say that again. Ever. The phone?”

  Erica tilted her body, raising one butt cheek. “It’s in my pocket.” She kept one hand on the wheel and reached back, sliding the phone out. She handed it over to Michael. “The passcode is zero-six-zero-six.”