by Nancy Rue
“I brought the rest back,” Hazel said. She spilled the contents of the envelope onto the table and fanned out the photos. “I gotta ask. Who took these?”
“Nick,” I said. “He’s the camera bug in our family.”
“He’s more than that. These are professional quality.”
Hazel picked up one and held it deftly without touching the surface. It was a closeup of Tristan and Max together, sitting on a bench on the boardwalk, each with an ice-cream cone. Max wore a chocolate-chip-cookie-dough mustache. A vanilla dribble ran over her fingers as her eyes followed some off-camera fascination. Tristan was studying her cone with the intensity of a brain surgeon. It had been licked smooth as satin.
“See, this is a real kid,” Hazel said. “Those cookie-cutter shots they take at school make them all look alike. Sun and Tri are like identical twins in last year’s. But this—” She tapped the picture with a gold-striped fingernail. “Look at the way he caught her.”
“She never lost a drop,” I said.
“It’s not only that. I mean, look at her. That isn’t just ice cream to her. There’s a whole other world in there.”
She was right. It was as if Tristan was neatly licking her way to the dreams that lay within swirls of chocolate and vanilla.
“We gotta get your girl back,” Hazel said.
I looked up into the too-blue eyes. She blinked them furiously.
“The kids and I are going to plaster these everywhere from Ocean City to Bowers Beach and inland as far as the Maryland border.”
“I wanna help.” Max’s voice was froggy, and her eyes were sleep-puffy. “Can I go, Mom?”
“It’s okay with me,” Hazel said. “What difference is one more kid?”
But I was already shaking my head.
“Mo-om!” Max said.
“Honey, Daddy would have a fit.”
“Can’t you call him?”
“Not when I already know what he’s going to say. We’ll do something else fun.”
“Yeah,” Max said. “Right.” Sarcasm still dripping from her lips, she stomped out of the kitchen.
“O-kay,” Hazel said. “I don’t get that, but I’m gonna keep my big mouth shut.”
I kept mine shut too. I couldn’t explain to Hazel that Nick wasn’t happy about her presence, although I was sure she noticed him stiffening every time he came home to find her there. Nor could I explain to Nick what she brought to us, besides junk food and children whose every utterance seemed to be delivered through a megaphone. If somebody made Max smile, do her hip-hop routine, and think about something besides her lost sister, I had to let her in the front door. Even if Nick did say she was “not a good influence.”
Max pouted about having to stay home until Hazel and the kids came back the following morning, announcing that everybody was going to know Tristan’s face now.
“I still wish I could’ve gone,” Max said, glaring at me.
“It really wasn’t that much fun,” Sun told her.
“You said it was yesterday,” Tri said.
“Shut up!” Sun said and pushed him into the pool.
Ed Malone came by later, full of compliments about the flier. “Maybe the phone will start ringing again.”
“So, can I just ask you a question, Mr. Detective?” Hazel said.
I squirmed, but Ed gave her a slow smile. “I don’t think I can stop you. And call me Ed.”
“Okay, Ed.” Hazel directed her eyes at him. “How hard are you leaning on Mama Zabriski?”
“Ricky’s mother?”
“That’s the one.”
Ed took a sip of the coffee Aunt Pete had put in front of him and winced. “We’ve questioned her. I’m convinced she’s told us everything she knows.”
“Right,” Hazel said.
“We didn’t put any bamboo shoots under her fingernails,” Ed said. “But I just didn’t get the sense that she was lying.”
Hazel looked ready to put a few sharp items under his fingernails, but he was saved by the arrival of Christine, dressed in an Evan-Picone suit and obviously with an agenda. Ed excused himself while Hazel kept Desi from climbing into Baby Mitchell’s stroller with him.
“I can’t stay long,” Christine said. Her eyes trailed warily to the stroller. “I just brought you a cheese platter.”
Max wrinkled her nose at the plate Aunt Pete was toting off to the kitchen.
“What’s that smell?” Tri said.
“It’s your manners,” Hazel said.
Christine edged closer to the stroller. “Oh, and I wanted to let you know that I’m putting together a Web site, just so we can keep people apprised of what’s happening with the search.”
“Oh,” I said.
“That way you won’t have people constantly asking you questions. And, of course, then we’ll know how to pray.”
How to pray. I wasn’t sure I knew myself anymore.
“I don’t know what kind of cheese that is,” Aunt Pete said when Christine and Mitchell were gone and Hazel had herded the kids out to the pool. “But Tri’s right about the stink.”
“Christine eats goat cheese,” I said.
Hazel pushed open the door to the deck for me. “She eats something that doesn’t agree with her. Must be why she has that nervous tic in her eye.”
“Christine has a nervous tic?” I said.
“It’s probably because this whole thing freaks her out.”
“I’d think she was nuts if it didn’t,” Aunt Pete said. She gave me a look I didn’t understand. I didn’t have the energy to try to figure it out.
“She hasn’t been around since last week, for one thing,” Hazel said.
“She’s so busy,” I said as I dropped into a chair. “She has her job, the baby, her husband. I don’t expect everybody to drop everything.”
Hazel leaned against the porch railing and patted her pockets. “I know. I’m just ticked because those cops aren’t doing enough.”
“That’s exactly what I think,” Aunt Pete said. “You can bet your boots if I could drive, I’d have been in Georgetown already.”
“Getting right in that Zabriski woman’s face,” Hazel said. She gave up her search for cigarettes and jerked her chin at me. “You and I ought to be on our way there right now.”
“What?”
“We need to go talk to her. I might want to pin her against the wall until she gives up her kid, but with you there, I’ll restrain myself.”
“I can watch the kids,” Aunt Pete said. “They know they can’t get away with anything with their Aunt Pete.”
“Just wait,” I said.
“See, that’s the problem,” Hazel said. “You’ve been waiting, and it hasn’t gotten you any closer to your kid.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me to my feet. “I’ve had my dealings with law enforcement, okay? There comes a time when you have to take matters into your own hands.”
“I can’t do this, Hazel. Nick would—”
“Nick would what?” Aunt Pete said. “You think he’s gonna take away your birthday?”
“He doesn’t hit you, does he?” Hazel said.
“No!”
“Then I don’t see the problem.”
I shrank back from her. “I don’t think you understand—”
“Do you want to get your daughter back or not?”
I couldn’t pull myself away from her eyes. They had the spark and fight in them that I had only felt in surges.
“We can take my car,” I said, “if you’ll drive.”
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I said.
“You’ve already said that six times, and we’re barely out of Bethany Beach,” Hazel said. “Either you take one of my Xanax, or we talk about how you’re going to handle this. Otherwise you’re going to drive me nuts.”
“How I’m going to handle it?” I said. “You said you’ve had experience with ‘taking things into your own hands.’ ”
“I don’t think you’re going to have to handle this situatio
n the way I had to deal with mine.”
“What was yours?” I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know, but if she didn’t do something to distract me, I didn’t think I’d make it.
“My third ex,” Hazel said, “Desi’s father. He was a monster, and I had him arrested. When he weaseled his way out of that, I got a restraining order. He ignored that, so I broke a leg off the dining room table and chased him off with it. Shocked the macho out of him.” She gave me a triumphant look. “I haven’t seen him since.”
“Are you serious?”
“Beyond. I’m not suggesting we break up Mama Zabriski’s furniture, but you may have to get tough.”
My mouth felt like desert terrain. “I can’t call her Mama Zabriski,” I said.
“Then I guess we better find out her name,” Hazel said. “Her address wouldn’t be a bad idea, either.”
The terrified part of me hoped the Georgetown phone book wouldn’t give up Mrs. Zabriski, but it did. When Hazel swung the Blazer into the driveway of the gray ranch house, that same terrified part hoped it was the wrong house or at least that Sarah Zabriski wasn’t home.
“I don’t know if I can do this, Hazel,” I said.
“Just go in there and be Tristan’s mother.” She took off the leopard-skin sunglasses to look at me. “Seems like that’s what you do best.”
I let Hazel ring the doorbell, and on her instructions I stood a few steps behind her.
“We don’t know what kind of wacko she might be,” she had told me in the car.
I was ready for anything from the barrel of a semiautomatic weapon (Hazel’s image) to a blast of insults about my daughter (my image). I did not expect the woman who opened the door to be wearing flowered scrubs and a guarded smile.
“I’m glad you found the place,” she said. Her voice was almost shrill. “Come on in.”
I looked at her stupidly as she opened the door and motioned us inside. Hazel went right in, dragging me by the sleeve.
The tall, wiry woman patted the sides of her hair. Its blond was fading rather than graying, much like everything else on her seemed to be doing. I sensed that I was watching someone slowly disappear.
“Giselle’s in the back,” she said. “I’m sure you can hear her.” She gave a nervous laugh, which accompanied the high-pitched barking that came from behind a closed door somewhere.
“Do you think this will take longer than a half hour?” she said. “I have to leave for work.”
In spite of Hazel poking my arm, I shook my head. “I’m afraid you have us mixed up with somebody else.”
The woman looked at my hands. “Where’s all your stuff? You aren’t the dog groomers?”
“No,” I said. “I’m Serena Soltani. Are you Sarah Zabriski?”
The woman erased her smile and went stiff.
“What do you want?” she said. “Don’t think you’re going to come in here and make accusations about my boy. I’ve had enough of it. I don’t know what happened to your daughter—I’ve told them all that—and I’ll tell you what I told them: My Ricky didn’t do anything to her. Giselle, shut up!”
The barking stopped, although it was hard to tell the dog’s voice from hers. Hazel poked me in the back, but I couldn’t say anything. I was afraid Sarah Zabriski would tremble into pieces if I did.
“Mrs. Soltani isn’t here to accuse you of anything,” Hazel said.
“Who are you?”
Hazel put out her hand. “Hazel Jefferson. I’m here for moral support. Looks like you could both use some.”
Sarah didn’t shake Hazel’s hand, but she stepped away from the wall she’d plastered herself to and nodded toward a shadowy room. “Five minutes,” she said. “If you don’t leave then, I’ll scream for those cops out there.”
“What cops?” I said.
“You mean those two in the unmarked car across the street?” Hazel said. “Could they be any more obvious?”
“They’re watching the house in case Ricky comes back here.” Sarah pointed us to the couch and perched on the edge of a rocking chair. She was so thin it barely moved. Everything in the room matched her—breakable and frail and obsessively tidy.
“I’m going to tell you what I keep telling them,” she said when Hazel and I had seated ourselves on a Queen Anne replica that I was afraid would crack beneath us. “I do not know where Ricky is. Has it occurred to anybody that he’s missing too? What if something happened to both of them?”
The thought was more chilling than almost any I’d entertained yet.
“Then you really don’t know where he is?” I said. “You haven’t heard from him?”
Sarah closed her eyes. “Why doesn’t anyone believe me? I want him home—just like any mother would.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “Mrs. Zabriski, I know exactly how you feel.”
She gripped the arms of the rocking chair. “Do you? Are people saying your child is a kidnapper and a rapist and maybe even a murderer? Are they hunting her down like she’s a serial killer?”
I could only shake my head.
“Is this Ricky?” Hazel said. She held a framed photograph she’d obviously picked up from the end table. For a moment I thought Sarah was going to fly across the room and snatch it out of Hazel’s hands.
“Nice-looking kid,” Hazel said.
She tilted the picture toward me. Either Hazel was lying, or I didn’t see what she saw. The boy inside the frame sneered at me with the big lips Aylana had described. They looked ready to say, “You want a piece of me?”
“I didn’t want him to bleach his hair like that,” Sarah said. “But he thought a lifeguard had to be more blond.” Her voice softened into motherly pride. “Other than that, he still looks just like his father.”
Ricky’s father must have had a straight nose and sharp green eyes and a sinister cut to his cheekbones. In spite of every effort not to, I imagined Tristan cuddled up next to him. He looked down at her, lip curled, with the same contempt in his eyes that he had for the camera.
“Where’s his dad?” Hazel said.
“He died when Ricky was only five,” Sarah said. “It’s been just the two of us ever since. We’re so close. That’s why I know something has happened to him. He would never let me worry like this.”
The dog in the back began to howl.
“It’s all right, Giselle,” Sarah called out. “She’s been having a fit ever since Ricky went missing. It’s like she knows something’s happened to him. She’s his dog; he had to have a schnoodle.”
“A schnoodle?” Hazel said.
“It’s a poodle-schnauzer mix. She loves him so much.”
She looked down at the hands she was knotting together in her lap. Her misery was as palpable as my own.
“Nice tattoo,” Hazel said, tapping the picture. “Looks new.”
I forced myself to look back at it. I didn’t know how I’d missed the black and red spider on Ricky’s left arm. He was obviously displaying it for the camera.
“It was new then. That was taken back at the beginning of June. He couldn’t wait until the next time he came home for me to see it, so he sent me the picture. He designed the spider himself.”
“He’s quite the artist,” Hazel said.
“I think he is. I wish he hadn’t wasted his talent on a tattoo, though. The pierced ear I didn’t mind, but I just don’t like body art.” Sarah sighed. “I’m glad now that I didn’t tell him that. I would hate for one of our last conversations to be me giving him a bad time.”
“I know,” I said. “The last time I talked to Tristan, it was about our not letting her get her hair cut. It seems so ridiculous now.”
Sarah nodded. “You just go over every word you said and every word they said, looking for some kind of clue.”
“I do.” I drew in a deep breath. “When you talked to Ricky, did he ever mention Tristan?”
“He never talks to me about his girlfriends. I’m sure he’s had them, cute as he is, but I guess boys don’t discuss those thi
ngs with their mothers.”
Even though you’re close? I wanted to say, but I couldn’t push the knife into this woman’s heart any further.
“We should probably go,” I said. “Let you go to work.”
“You in the medical profession?” Hazel said.
“I’m a nurse’s aide in a convalescent home.” She sounded almost apologetic. “It isn’t much. I wish I made better money so I could do more for Ricky. I hate that he has to drive that old beat-up car.”
I wondered if she knew that old beat-up car was now infamous on the AMBER Alert. Somehow, I hoped not.
“Listen,” she said as she led us to the front door. “I’m sorry I was so rude to you when you first got here. I’ve just been harassed so much—first the Georgetown police, then the Bethany Beach police, then the private detective—”
“Somebody hired a private investigator?” I said.
Sarah blinked at me. “Well, yeah. You did.”
“Excuse me?”
“He said the Soltanis sent him. I guess I would do the same thing if I could afford it.”
Giselle set up another wail, and Hazel took me by the arm.
“We’ll let you go take care of the schnoodle,” she said. “Thanks for your time.”
Chapter Eight
I couldn’t talk on the way home. It was all too much: the idea that something could have happened to both Tristan and Ricky, that without him we might never find her, that another woman’s heart was breaking just like mine was. And that Nick had hired a private investigator—that he, too, had taken matters into his own hands.
Hazel left me alone until we were only a block from my house. “Something struck me when I was looking at that tattoo,” she said then, “and I think we oughta check it— What the …”
Gravel sprayed as she skidded the Blazer to a stop on the side of the road. I could feel the color draining from my face.
There was an ambulance in our driveway, lights flashing. Ed Malone’s cruiser was parked askew on the grass, and a beach patrol Jeep sat halfway on the curb beyond them both. Nick hadn’t even gotten his Nissan all the way off the road, and the door on the driver’s side was hanging open.
