She's Not There

by P J Parrish

  Something was still bothering him, something about the car’s gullwing doors, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. And then there was the big question: Where the hell was Amelia Tobias going that night?

  His experience and his instincts were telling him she had been on her way to meet a lover. But who wore a Chanel cocktail dress to a tryst in the swamp?

  He clicked off the flashlight and trudged off through the rain.

  Amelia Tobias’s life was spread out before him on the bed.

  Buchanan’s eyes swept over the scattering of papers and photographs. For two hours now he had been working the phones, scouring the Internet, and printing out the results of his search, working to put together a clear picture of the woman. Normally, after even this limited amount of time and research, he had a good bead on what kind of runner he was chasing.

  All he had to do was sift through the mundane data of their daily lives—phone records, Facebook postings, credit card bills, what books they bought on Amazon, what movies they rented from Netflix—and the runners always revealed themselves.

  It was, he always thought, like watching one of those old Polaroid pictures come into focus. And once he got a clear picture of what the person had been, he could always figure out where they had gone.

  But this one . . .

  There was a strange lack of information on Amelia Tobias.

  There had been plenty of stuff on Alex Tobias: articles about his law firm’s cases, his successes, and his business holdings. Amelia—“the lovely Mrs. Tobias”—was mentioned in his big profile in Lawyer Monthly. But the only things Buchanan had found on Amelia herself came from the society pages.

  He sat down on the edge of the bed and picked up a printout.

  It was a home décor piece from Florida Design. It showed the Tobias home, a big pink Spanish-style place. To his eye, it looked like some place Zorro would live if he had no taste. But apparently, Amelia had rescued what was an important “Mizner-style manse” from the wrecking ball. There were quotes from her about how she had devoted three years to overseeing the renovation, accompanied by lots of pictures of the big white rooms. There was a photo of Amelia standing in front of the pool in a red dress.

  The only other pictures of her that he had found were in Gold Coast Magazine’s “Scene and Heard” section and in City and Shore Magazine’s “Out & About.” The names of the events changed—Diamond Ball for Cancer Research, Pawpurrazzi Party for the Humane Society, Opera Guild Disco Night—but the pictures were always the same. Alex Tobias in a tux, clutching a champagne glass and showing a lot of teeth. And there at his side was Amelia, beautiful for sure, but always with one of those smiles that said I’m here but I’m really not here.

  It was like she lived in a bubble. The woman didn’t even have her own Facebook page.

  The rich are different from you and me, Bucky, and it’s not just the money.

  He knew that. He had worked cases for a couple people who could buy Alex Tobias ten times over. But he had never gotten used to the world they lived in. He tossed the printout to the bed, and his eyes drifted around the hotel room. He had to admit, though, that when the case paid well enough, it was nice to hover around the gilded edges.

  After leaving the impound lot, he had retreated to a nearby bar and fired up the laptop to find a hotel on Expedia. He had chosen the W Hotel on the beach, deciding he deserved to stay in a place Condé Nast Traveler called “the perfect balance of style and soul.” Tobias was paying the freight—three ninety a night—for what was called “A Cool Corner Room.”

  It was almost nine hundred square feet, bigger than his apartment back in Nashville, the king-sized bed flanked by two walls of floor-to-ceiling windows that opened onto a wraparound balcony. Even the crapper had an ocean view.

  Buchanan rose, grabbed the last wedge of a club sandwich off the room-service table, and went to the desk. He punched a key on his Acer, and the notes he had transcribed from his meeting with Alex Tobias flashed up on the screen.

  It had taken two hours and two more Armadale vodkas to get Tobias really talking.

  Tell me everything you know about your wife’s past.

  Why?

  Because there’s a good chance she’s still here in town and she might go where she feels safe.

  He hadn’t mentioned that might be a lover’s bed.

  Tobias’s recall of his wife’s early years was sketchy, but Buchanan knew he could fill in the gaps himself later.

  Amelia Tobias had been born in Morning Sun, Iowa, thirty-three years ago. Daughter of Barbara and George Bloodworth. Mother a housewife, father a salesman for John Deere, strict Baptist home. Father died in a car accident when Amelia was twenty; mother died five years ago from cancer. Older brother Ben killed in action in Afghanistan three years ago. Amelia met Alex Tobias in 2004 at a gala party for the Miami City Ballet. Amelia was a ballet dancer, first with the New York City Ballet, but then she had moved to Miami to take a position with the ballet company there. She left the Miami City Ballet in 2006 and married Tobias soon after.

  Tobias had paused at that point to stare down into his empty glass.

  After she stopped dancing, she dedicated herself to building our life. I was nothing before I met Mel.

  Well into the third vodka, Tobias had gotten pretty puffed up talking about how he had been hired by one of Florida’s most prominent lawyers—Owen McCall. They had partnered up to start a new firm, luring away the biggest clients from McCall’s old firm down in Miami. Success had come fast. Or as Tobias had poetically put it, “it was like we were white-water rafting in a lava flow of gold.”

  Tobias filled his garage with cars and his wine cellar with old Burgundies. The couple honeymooned in Provence, rented villas in St. Barts, and skied in the Italian Alps, often with Owen McCall and his wife Joanna. Tobias talked about how Joanna had taken Amelia under her wing and gotten her involved in charity work and social circles. The law firm thrived; money rolled in.

  Mel was happy. We were happy.

  But then Tobias had gone morose as he stared down into his vodka.

  Buchanan paused at a note he had made. No kids. Diagnosed fallopian tube blockage. Tobias seems upset talking about this. But Buchanan knew it couldn’t be as simple as that. It never was.

  He rose and went back to the bed, picking up the Florida Design article again. He stared hard at the photograph of the blonde woman in the red dress but he was remembering something his dad had told him one morning in the duck blind.

  See that crested grebe, Clay? Well, it’s all bright and red now in summer. But come winter, it’ll change itself to gray. It won’t look like the same bird because it needs to blend in and hide.

  Buchanan went back to his laptop and pulled up his e-mail. It took only a second for the photograph to download. It came up on his screen large and bright, and in lovely clear 500-pixel resolution.

  Back at the restaurant, Buchanan had asked Alex Tobias if he had a good picture of his wife. Tobias had quickly e-mailed him one from his iPhone. At the time, Buchanan had thought it was strange he didn’t have a photo of his wife in his wallet. But Alex Tobias was thirty-eight, ten years younger than he himself was. Some young guys didn’t even carry wallets anymore.

  Buchanan stared into Amelia Tobias’s eyes.

  Blue . . . Windex blue.

  Tobias had told him that Amelia wore contacts, which she had left at the hospital. The contacts were tinted blue, and her eyes were really brown.

  Buchanan leaned back in the chair.

  So now Amelia Tobias had brown eyes. And maybe tomorrow she would have red, black, brown, or purple hair. In a couple days, he might be looking for a woman who looked nothing like this one. Because if she really was a runner, her primitive brain would kick in and she would do three instinctively animal things—find a place to hide, cover her tracks, and change her spots.

&n
bsp; Disguises.

  He had seen all manner of them, seen the weird lengths people would go to when they were desperate to disappear. Men shaving themselves bald, women resorting to bad wigs that made them look like the mother from The Brady Bunch. And then there was the tax evader he had chased for three years before he finally found him living in Costa Rica. The man was black but had bleached his skin with Fair & Lovely whitening cream and sewn up his nose, like a cook trussing a chicken, to make it look smaller.

  How desperate was Amelia Tobias? And where the hell had she gone?

  The voice came again, softer this time: This one’s special, Bucky.

  Buchanan glanced at his watch. It was almost ten, which meant Amelia had been officially missing for thirty-five hours. How far could a woman with a concussion—and no phone, money or ID—get in such a short time?

  Buchanan had instructed Alex not to cancel his wife’s credit cards, just on the chance she might try to call and get replacements. But there had been no activity on either her Visa or Amex accounts since last week, when Amelia charged a visit to a Pilates studio. Even if she did somehow get her hands on some money, without an ID there was no way she could rent a car or buy a plane ticket. She couldn’t even apply for a replacement license because the Florida DMV wouldn’t take cash to pay for the fee, and they required you to show a photo ID.

  ID . . . that was what usually tripped runners up. Since 9/11, the world had gotten more complex, but his job had gotten easier because of it. There was no way to get along in the real world without an ID. The only way she could travel without ID was by bus. But even the Greyhound folks needed money. And so far, there was no indication Amelia had spent a dime.

  There was a knock on the door. Buchanan went and opened it to see a young man wearing a W blazer and holding out a large white mailer.

  “This just arrived for you, Mr. Buchanan,” he said.

  “Thanks,” Buchanan said, taking the envelope. It was emblazoned with a gold and black logo—MCCALL AND TOBIAS ATTORNEYS AT LAW, and under that the firm’s motto: “We’re In This Together.”

  He stuck his hand in his pocket, groping for his wallet.

  “That’s not necessary, sir,” the young man said, and started back down the hall.

  “Wait,” Buchanan called. “Can you ask them to send me up some bourbon?”

  “Of course, sir. What kind?”

  “I changed my mind. A bottle of Jack Daniels will do.”

  “Yes, sir. Right away, sir.”

  The young man left, and Buchanan took the envelope to the desk.

  Back at the restaurant, he had told Tobias he needed access to his wife’s computer and e-mails. Tobias had told him Amelia didn’t have a computer and hated anything “techy.”

  The police had probably run her phone LUDs—local usage detail. But as long as they were looking at Tobias as a suspect in her accident, they weren’t going to share those. And while it was easy enough to bribe an impound guy, Buchanan had no contacts in Lauderdale PD high enough to get a copy of the police report.

  Normally, Buchanan would be able to access Amelia’s iPhone contact list through her iCloud account. But unlike her fastidious husband, she had never bothered to back up her phone list.

  Instead, she kept track of phone numbers in a Day Runner book. The only gadget she used, her husband said, was her Kindle, which she took to bed with her every night.

  Buchanan tore open the mailer. Inside was a red leather Day Runner and the Kindle. He opened the Day Runner to the week that Amelia disappeared.

  Nothing exceptional. Amelia had written in the Pilates appointment, a dinner at YOLO with Joanna, notations for “guild meet,” “hair,” and “Greta facial.” Her last entry for Friday morning was “Fantasia Spa 9 a.m.” The only other entry was a scribble in the box for tomorrow: “J’s birthday!” Had to be Joanna McCall.

  Buchanan flipped to the address section. Amelia had recorded names, addresses, and phone numbers in her neat straight handwriting. At first glance, the entries appeared to be all doctors and personal stuff like trainers and manicurists.

  According to Tobias, Joanna McCall was Amelia’s only close friend in Fort Lauderdale. Tobias had told him Amelia’s only other friend was a woman named Carol Fairfield. Carol had been a dancer with the New York City Ballet but retired ten years ago and was now living in Minneapolis. Tobias said his wife flew up there every August to see Carol because their birthdays fell within days of each other. Tobias told him he never went on the visits, that it was Amelia’s annual “chick trip” and Carol never came to Fort Lauderdale.

  Buchanan had done a quick Google and PeopleFinders search for Carol Fairfield. It turned up nothing, but that meant she was probably using a married name now. His call to the New York City Ballet got him a promise from a clerk to check their records and get back to him.

  Buchanan flipped the Day Runner’s pages to F. No listing for Carol Fairfield. Odd, but then an old friend’s address and phone were often just stored in a person’s memory.

  Problem was, Amelia didn’t have a memory right now, according to her husband.

  He tossed the Day Runner down and picked up the Kindle. The books and magazines runners downloaded left virtual breadcrumb trails. He had once traced an embezzler to Manila because the dumb fuck had downloaded Lonely Planet Guide to the Philippines.

  He popped open the bright pink cover and fired up the e-reader. He got a screen that read ENTER PASSWORD.

  Password? Who the hell password-protected their books?

  He began to type in various combinations of Amelia’s name, maiden name Bloodworth, and her date of birth, because he knew most people relied on the most obvious shit for their passwords.

  Nothing.

  He stared at the blinking cursor, but in his mind he was hearing Alex Tobias’s petulant voice.

  She takes the thing to bed with her every night.

  Buchanan turned the reader over in his hands. It was a Kindle Fire, which meant it had Internet capability. He had a sudden vision of Amelia Tobias lying next to her husband with her Kindle, not reading her books or magazines, but reading her e-mails.

  Carol Fairfield’s e-mail was probably hidden in Amelia’s Kindle. And maybe others that Amelia didn’t want anyone to find, like that of a lover?

  He switched off the Kindle and set it aside. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes as the long day finally began to settle into his muscles and brain with a throbbing ache.

  There was a rumble of thunder, and he looked to the sliding glass doors in time to see a zigzag of lightning. He pushed himself from the chair, went to the doors, and slid them open. The heavy night air rushed in, smacking up against the artic air-conditioning. He stepped out onto the balcony.

  Ten floors below, through the wind-whipped palm fronds, he could see the lights of the cars creeping along A1A. He couldn’t see the beach because the streetlights were off. Knocked out by the coming storm, maybe?

  There was a soft rap on the door. He went to answer it and found a woman in a black W uniform holding a tray. It held a bottle of Jack, a glass, and a bucket of ice.

  “Your order, sir.”

  “Yeah, good. Just set it on the desk there, please.”

  The woman set it down and held out the room-service bill for Buchanan to sign. A rumble of thunder and a gust of wind came from the open sliding glass doors.

  “Shall I shut that for you, sir?” the woman asked. “There’s a bad storm coming.”

  “I guess so. It’s already knocked out the streetlights.”

  “Streetlights?” The woman looked to the open doors. “Oh no, the city shuts them off on purpose.”

  “Why?”

  “For the turtles.”

  “What?”

  “The sea turtles, sir. It’s turtle season. They lay their eggs in the sand and when the babies hatch, they use the mo
onlight to guide them to the ocean. But if the streetlights are on, they lose their way and follow the bright lights up to the highway.”

  Buchanan nodded. “Where they die.”

  “Yes, sir, I’m afraid so.”

  She started toward the sliding glass doors.

  “No, leave them open, please,” Buchanan said.

  She nodded, gave him a smile, and left. The room was quiet for a moment and then came another rumble of thunder. Buchanan went to the tray, dropped some ice cubes into a glass and opened the bottle of Jack Daniels. He filled the glass halfway and drank it quickly.

  Bucky?

  The voice was there in his head again, not his dad this time but the other one, the gentle voice that came like a ghostly whisper, echoing in his hollow insides. The only one who ever called him by that nickname.

  No more, Bucky, please.

  And then she was gone.

  He drained the glass, wincing at the scorching in his throat, waiting for the numbness to come. When it didn’t, he poured another glass and took it out onto the balcony.

  Below, it was nothing but blackness. He could smell the rain and hear the rumble, but there was nothing else there. Then, suddenly, there was a break in the black clouds and the moon emerged. Moonlight, soft and silvery, slid over the sand, lighting the way, and then it was gone.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Buchanan got only twenty feet into the lobby of the Lauderdale Yacht Club before he was stopped.

  “Are you a member, sir?”

  The man who had stepped in front of him was wearing a hard smile and a blue blazer with a little flag emblem on the breast pocket.

  “No, I am not,” Buchanan said. “I’m a guest of Joanna McCall’s.”

  “Ah. Yes. She’s waiting in the bar, sir. Just beyond the trophy case.”

  Buchanan eyed the silver cups and model boats in the case as he passed, and then paused at the entrance to the bar. It was well past lunchtime, but the place was still full of big dogs in Maas Brothers sherbet slacks and polo shirts, with a few Brooks Brothers types thrown in. There were only a few women, most of them old tsarinas and a few sleek young SWANKS—second wives and no kids.