by Nancy Rue
The man I watched climb the steps to our house bore little resemblance to my Nick. The hair on the back of his head was flat from constantly pawing at it in angst, I knew, and even from across the driveway I could see the dark shadow of uneven stubble. His hands were jammed into the pockets of the slacks he’d been wearing for twenty-four hours. Inside the rumpled blue oxford, his square shoulders sagged, making the shirt look two sizes too big. His gaze seemed glued to the tassels on his loafers.
When I called to him, he straightened his back and turned toward me, holding out one arm. When I folded into him, I smelled dried sweat and stale coffee. Nick never smelled like that.
I didn’t ask if he knew anything. He wouldn’t be holding me silently if he did, unless—
I grabbed a handful of hair on his forearm where his sleeve was rolled up. “Nick, she’s not—”
He pushed my face back into the front of his shirt. “No. The dog tracked her to the boardwalk parking lot near the steps, but the trail stopped there. Search and Rescue says that probably means she left in a car.”
“She wouldn’t just go off in a car with somebody, Nicky You know that.”
“They’re doing everything they can, hon. Some of us walked the beach all night. The police hit every hangout from here to below Ocean City. Did you hear the helicopter?”
I nodded away from his chest. “Then why haven’t they found her? She’s not here anymore, Nicky. They’ve taken her—”
“Okay, stop. Just stop.” Nick’s voice took on an exhausted edge, and he ran his hand down his face as if to wipe it away. “We can’t go there, Serena. We can’t, and we won’t.” He cupped his hand on the back of my head. “Okay? God just wouldn’t let that happen, right?”
It was a question that didn’t allow for any answer other than “I know, Nicky.”
“Did you get any sleep?” he said.
I shook my head. “Aunt Pete finally did.”
Nick pushed the front door open, and we both sniffed.
“She’s up now,” he said.
The air inside the house was filled with the unmistakable smell of overdone bacon and walk-across-the-street coffee. Aunt Pete was sliding a pair of eggs onto a plate when I sat down on a stool at the snack bar. The eggs’ rim was brown and curled up, Aunt Pete’s miracle cure for an appetite if I’d had one.
“If you’re not going to sleep, you at least have to eat,” she said. “Didn’t I hear Nicky drive up?”
“I’m here.” Nick dropped onto the stool next to mine and slapped the morning paper on the counter. Aunt Pete whipped it open, scanned the front page in a squint, and let it fall again.
“Nothing about our girl,” she said. The static in her voice was thick. “How do they expect to find her if they don’t get the word out?”
“This isn’t like Philadelphia, Aunt Pete,” Nick said with patience I knew was forced.
“I’m calling those newspaper people myself,” Aunt Pete said.
“I’m sure they know. Detective Malone requested an AMBER Alert.”
An AMBER Alert. Tristan’s name in larger-than-life computer letters blinking down onto the highway? Signaling to everyone that our daughter probably wasn’t all right?
The image slammed into me so hard that I reeled toward the floor.
Nick caught me and held my ear close to his mouth. “It’s just standard procedure, hon,” he said. “We probably don’t need it.”
What I needed was the assurance I always had that my faithful little family was being taken care of. By Nicky. By a world God made safe for us. By God Himself.
Nick made me lie down on the family room couch and at least close my eyes. I fought sleep, so it only managed to capture me in gray moments. I was aware that Lissa and Pastor Gary came in—and later that the doorbell rang incessantly. Once I heard voices battering someone—
“Mrs. Soltani, do you know anybody who would have abducted your daughter?”
“Have you heard any news?”
“How worried are you, Serena?”
“Are you afraid you’ll never see your daughter again?”
“I’m not Mrs. Soltani,” I heard Lissa shout at them. “And no, she is not afraid of that.”
Later, other voices rose just above whispers in the kitchen, saying the beachfront parking lot that bordered our property was jammed with sound trucks and vans from channel this and channel that.
Through my snatches of sleep, I heard Pastor Gary say, “I think you need to go give them a statement, Nick. I know they look like vultures, but it can only help if they get the story out.”
I woke up once to see two goateed twenty-somethings with digital camcorders peering in through the french doors, followed by tattered pieces of conversation.
“Those aren’t official media people—”
“Tell that cop out front—”
“Get away before I crush your little skulls!” That, of course, came from Aunt Pete, who added, “Somebody’s name is gonna be Mud.”
I was jolted fully awake around noon by high-pitched shouts from the pool.
“Is that Tristan?” I cried out before I could even get untangled from the blanket. “Is she home?”
But it was just the children, Lissa’s and Rebecca’s and mine. Only one of mine.
“Come on, Serena,” Lissa said. “Let’s go upstairs where it’s quieter.”
She coaxed me up the steps and tried to get me to crawl into bed, but it had all the appeal of a mattress of tacks. Every nerve ending screamed, Don’t lie down! You’ll lose your mind!
“I want to stay awake,” I said, “in case we hear something.”
“I’ll wake you up when we hear something,” Lissa said. Her eyes were honey-brown pools of concern, and they made me want to cry. Suddenly everything made me want to cry.
I plunged my face into Lissa’s shoulder and sobbed. I could feel her sliding wisps of my hair between her fingers. “You’re doing great, Serena. I just think you’re doing great.”
I wasn’t rocking on the floor in an embryonic position, if that was what she meant. It was all I could do to keep grasping for the assurance I wanted to believe was there. Somewhere.
The house was a hive of activity for the rest of the day. Women doing my laundry. People telling me to let the Lord take over and to get some sleep. Voices praying. Friends clutching their own children as if they, too, were going to be snatched away.
Detective Malone gave an official police-department statement to the crowd in the parking lot, which I listened to from inside the front door. Pastor Gary stood with me, pressing down on his auburn mustache with a freckled thumb and index finger.
“I’ve sat with people whose kids were dying or flunking out of school or doing drugs,” he said. “But this is so different, Serena. I told Nick, I’m not sure what to say to you. There are so many ifs. It’s hard to find comfort in ifs.”
I didn’t tell him I was struggling to find comfort in anything. I was grateful that he didn’t say what I would have said even twenty-four hours earlier if this had been happening to Lissa or Rebecca or any other mother: “God is good all the time. All the time God is good.” I didn’t know what to do with that just now. I was still waiting for the certainty that God was going to show up on the doorstep at any moment with an unscathed Tristan.
Nick was in and out all day. At one point Christine handed him a suggested statement for the press, but beyond that I had no idea what he was doing. He was out when Christine came to me in the breakfast nook where I sat with Lissa, staring out at the ocean and not drinking Aunt Pete’s molasses-colored iced tea.
“Somebody named Aylana is at the door,” Christine said. “She says you left her a message.”
I clawed my way out of the nook, calling Aylana’s name before I got to the foyer. She was standing just inside the front door with a police officer so young he still had pimples on his chin. Aylana’s large, liquid gray eyes widened as a houseful of women gathered behind me. One dark eyebrow went up, lifting its ti
ny gold ring with it.
“She says you called her,” the child officer said to me.
“Last night,” Aylana said. She stepped forward to give me her customary hug and kiss on the cheek. Her skin was sun warm, her arms willowy like Tristan’s. I forced myself not to hang on to her as she spoke.
“I was on my way to work,” she said, “and I thought I would stop by and see if Tristan wanted to walk with me.” She glanced warily at her police escort. “What is with all this?”
The small bubble of hope that had appeared at her arrival popped almost audibly. I watched her grow blurry on the other side of my tears.
Aylana pulled her eyes from me and searched the little crowd.
“Tristan’s missing,” Rebecca said. “This really isn’t a good time—”
“Did she say anything at all to you?” I said to Aylana. I wiped under my eyes with my fingertips. “When you saw her Wednesday, did she say anything unusual?”
Aylana shook her head, mahogany ponytail and hoop earrings swinging in unison. “We talk about music, guys …” Her full lips spread into a momentary smile. “Well, I talk about guys. I teased her about that one who always comes to flirt with her—”
“What’s this now?”
Nick was in the doorway of the family room with Ed Malone behind him, though how Nick had gotten there I had no idea. He cut past Christine, putting his face inches from Aylana’s. She arched back.
“What guy?” Nick said. I could see his jaw muscles working.
“I don’t know,” Aylana said. “Just a guy.”
“Did she know him?”
Aylana shrugged.
“Did she act like she knew him? Did she say his name?” Nick pulled a finger from his hip and stabbed the air near Aylana’s ear. His voice was so hard, the tendons in his neck strained against it. “Look, this is important. You have to tell us everything—”
“I don’t know anything, ’kay?” Aylana said. She backed stiffly toward the door.
“I think you do know!”
“Nick.” Ed Malone stepped around me and put a hand on Nick’s shoulder. “Let’s take it easy.”
I watched, unbelieving, as Nick stepped back from Aylana. His red rage slid back inside him.
“All right, everybody out of the pool,” Aunt Pete said.
“We’re not in the pool,” one of the Quantums said.
“She means leave the room, moron,” Max said.
Aylana was clearly close to tears by the time the foyer emptied of everyone except Ed and Nick and me. Nick stood with his hands on his hips, still boring into her with his eyes.
Ed touched Aylana lightly on the elbow. “Start at the beginning about this fella Tristan talked to at work.”
Aylana kept her guarded gaze on Nick. “I am so sorry. I should say nothing because I know nothing.”
Nick’s knuckles went white. I looped my arm through his. It felt like a band of steel.
“How many times did he visit her?” Ed said.
“He just comes for fries,” Aylana said. “He flirts with Tristan because she’s cute.”
“Does she know him, do you think?” Ed said.
Aylana shrugged.
Give a guess.
“I can’t,” Aylana said. “Tristan and I, we aren’t close.”
Nick wrenched away from me.
“Can you give us a description?” Ed said.
“I didn’t look at him that much,” Aylana said.
That I found hard to believe.
She muttered something about his being tall and thin and tan but always wearing a ball cap, so she didn’t get a good look at his face.
“What team?” Nick barked at her.
Aylana’s brow twisted.
“What team was on the ball cap?”
“I don’t know about teams.”
Nick grunted and stalked into the living room. Aylana’s face stiffened as she stared at the doorway. Ed nodded at Aylana.
“This is my card,” he said. “If you think of anything or hear anything, call me.”
He put the emphasis square on the me. Aylana gave the living room one last look before she left. Her exit was clearly an escape.
Nick reappeared, rubbing the back of his head as if he was scouring it with steel wool. “Sorry about that,” he said. “I just can’t believe she doesn’t know more.”
“Something may come to her,” Ed said. “We caught her off guard.” He looked over his shoulder toward the kitchen, where low voices had stopped murmuring. “Is there someplace we can talk privately?”
Nick led us into the library, just beyond the staircase. A striped chaise longue and two butter yellow recliners beckoned, but none of us sat down. Ed put one hand on an upper shelf of a bookcase and looked at the floor.
“Your kidnapping theory,” he said finally. “I’m not sure it has much merit.”
I stared at Nick. “What kidnapping theory?”
“Hon, we’re handling it,” he said. He squeezed my shoulder.
I looked from him to Ed and back again. My head was going into a frenzy. “What do you mean, kidnapping? Somebody took Tristan for money?”
Nick put his hand up and closed his eyes.
“What?” I said to Ed.
“Look,” Nick said, “I mentioned to Detective Malone that I’ve had threats from some of the people in that last layoff. I didn’t take it seriously at the time—”
“What kind of threats?” I said. “Did they threaten to take Tristan?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then why—”
Once more Nick closed his eyes, the way he did when he was about to end a discussion with Max. “Asked and answered,” he would say to her. “We’re done.” An unfamiliar thread of irritation wound around my spine.
“I’ve been asking around,” Nick said. “Apparently there was talk—guys having a couple of beers down at Huey’s—one-upping each other on how they were going to take me out.” He sighed at me. “I didn’t want to get you even more upset. I just thought it was worth looking into, so I gave Ed some names.”
“We’re following up on all of them,” Ed said. “So far they have firm alibis and nothing to link them to Tristan’s disappearance. You haven’t received a ransom note or a call, anything like that.”
I snapped my face toward Nick. He shook his head.
“If you do, you’ll let us know.”
It wasn’t a question. Nick gave him an almost imperceptible nod.
“If it’s warranted, we’ll bring the FBI in.” Ed looked at me. The sun attempting to slant its way through the closed blinds showed tiny lines at the corners of his eyes. They were, I noticed for the first time, green and gold, almost translucent, calm and honest. I hoped he wasn’t just trained to look that way.
“You don’t think she was kidnapped,” I said. “I mean, not like Nick’s talking about.”
“No, I don’t.” He looked quickly at Nick. “But we do want to offer you the opportunity to make a public statement for the press. We’re going to look into what the Kalidimos girl said about the kid who hung around the fries shop, but you going on camera might provide us with more leads. We really don’t have much right now.”
“That girl’s holding back,” Nick said.
Of course she is, I thought. You scared her to death.
The thought surprised me, and I consciously banished it. We were both tied in miserable, frustrated knots, struggling to get free of the panic and the unthinkable visions. I was paralyzed. Nick was lashing out. We were now people we’d never had to be before, and we couldn’t be blamed for floundering.
“The chief’s ready to set up a press conference as soon as you agree.”
“Yeah, okay,” Nick said. “I guess I have to try everything.”
Ed tilted his head at me. Even in my bewildered state, I’d figured out that mannerism meant he was about to tell me something hard.
“Not just Nick,” he said. “It would really be effective if you talked too, Mrs
. Soltani. Nothing long—just a few words.”
“Why?” Nick said.
Ed kept his eyes on me. “Your emotional state is going to get people’s attention, make them want to help. They won’t be able to get you—or Tristan—out of their minds.”
“I don’t know.” Nick put his hand on the back of my neck, the way he did when we were crossing a street or strolling down the beach and a sand crab skittered over my foot. “Hon, you’re already under so much stress.”
“It’s up to you,” Ed said. He was still looking at me. “I’ll give the chief the word and let you know when. Probably do it right out there in the parking lot next to your driveway.”
When Ed let himself out, Nick steered me to the chaise longue, hand still hugging the back of my neck. I sat down and pulled the yellow shawl from the chaise around my shoulders. Nick squatted in front of me and coaxed my hair off my forehead with his fingers.
“I didn’t mean for you to be blindsided by the kidnapping thing,” he said. “I thought you had enough to handle.”
“The detective just said he doesn’t think it is a kidnapping. Unless you’re holding out on me, we don’t have the kind of money kidnappers ask for.” I tried to smile.
Nick ran a knuckle down my cheek. “You have firsthand knowledge on the going rate for ransoms?”
“I saw that Mel Gibson movie,” I said.
We exchanged weak grins, and for a moment things were just as they’d been twenty-four hours before. But the effort was exhausting. I sagged against the back of the chaise longue and drew the shawl around me. Nick brushed his lips across mine before he stood up and rubbed his palms on the sides of his slacks, leaving damp smudges on the khaki.
“I know what Ed said, but I still think we need to keep constant watch over Max. Not leave her alone for a minute. We’ll make a bed for her in our room tonight.”
“But if Tristan wasn’t kidnapped—”
“Just let me deal with this, Serena.” Nick’s face darkened as if he were holding back frustration with a leash. His phone went off like an alarm, and he snarled a hello.
I sat with shawl fringe entrapped in my fingers and watched him close his eyes and murmur “uh-huh” until the snarl and the darkness retreated and left him gray. He put a hand over the phone and whispered to me, “I’m sorry, hon. We’ll talk, okay?”
