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Authors: Rosalind Noonan

All She Ever Wanted (23 page)

BOOK: All She Ever Wanted
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“It's cold out here,” she said. “Not really party atmosphere.”
“Do you remember what it's like to be eighteen?” Chris paused beside a tall tree, staring past the handball walls and swings. “All you need for a party is a can of beer.” He pointed to the far end of the asphalt playground. “See over there? That looks like the field house.”
They decided not to use the flashlight, not wanting to scare them off. Under the cover of darkness, they approached the small outbuilding. The smell of burnt marijuana mixed in the air with low voices.
“Sounds like our guys,” Chris said as they approached.
The young men were huddled together on one side of the field house. They sat on the ground in a line, their backs against the stone building, probably using it to stay out of the wind.
No one reacted as Grace and Chris got close. At least they're not scrambling, Grace thought. She was in no mood to get into a chase.
“Hey, guys. Got a little party going on. What's in the cans?” Chris asked.
“Coke.”
“Really? You're out here in the cold drinking soda, when you could do that in Mommy's basement?”
“What are you, a cop?” someone asked.
“As a matter of fact, we're detectives. So what are you really drinking?”
“Just a little beer, officer,” one of the guys said. “We're not hurting anybody and we'll clean up when we go. We don't want any trouble.”
Chris turned the flashlight on and panned over their faces.
Boys,
Grace thought. Some of them weren't much older than Matt.
“Because you had the balls not to run, we're going to let you keep your beer, as long as you cooperate.” Chris ran the flashlight beam over their faces again, though the details were masked by hoods and watch caps and baseball hats. “Which one of you is Krispy?”
Four of the guys turned toward the kid on one end.
The light shone on a thin kid in a plaid jacket with a navy hood over his head. “Looks like you're coming with us. Put your beer on the ground and step over here, Krispy.”
“Aw, man,” Krispy protested, though he placed the paper sack on the ground and rose. A whole head taller than Grace.
Grace held the flashlight as Chris had the kid step around the side of the field house, where he checked him for weapons.
“Am I under arrest?” Krispy asked. “Are you going to cuff me?”
“Not if you come willingly,” Chris said. He introduced himself and Grace, and gave Krispy a chance to look over their IDs by the light of the flashlight. They didn't want to terrorize the kid.
“We need to talk with you down at the precinct,” Grace said.
“For underage drinking?” Krispy asked. “That's bullshit.”
“This is about something else,” Chris said. “Are you going to man up and cooperate? We can all be nice about it, unless you want to be a hard-ass about it.”
Krispy paused, weighing his options. Since he was over sixteen, they could take him in without parental consent, and Grace suspected that Krispy knew that.
“Yeah, whatever,” Krispy muttered. “Let's go already.”
 
Although Armand Krispalian behaved like a model prisoner on the way to the precinct, once they got him into an interrogation room, he clammed up.
In his dark brow and the lean line of his chin, Grace saw defiance and fear. She didn't blame him for either; she wouldn't want to be in his shoes, dragged away from the smoky cool of a party to be questioned by police under a buzzing fluorescent light.
“I don't know, Krispy.” Grace didn't mask her concern. “You're still on probation, and we could write you up for underage drinking. But that would get you in a snag with your probation officer, wouldn't it?”
“Not to mention that aroma circling your friends out there at the field house,” Chris said. “Smelled like weed to me. I guess we could also go back and bust up the whole party, write up all your friends.”
Armand let his head drop back on his shoulders, a gesture of resignation. “What do you want to know?”
“Tell us about your new business venture, Armand,” Grace said. “Your big moneymaker.”
He groaned. “It's just about getting a couple of kids some beers, you know?”
Grace bit her lips together. This wasn't what they were looking for, but whatever. “Go on.”
The kid cupped his face in his hands, his dark eyes round with worry. “What I want to know is, how did you find out? Did my father notice stuff missing?”
“Tell us your side of the story,” Chris said.
“It's just a way to make some cash. I buy a few cases of beer from my father's store. I just scan it out under my father's register code, and I pay for it. That's all legit. Then I sell it to the guys at the park, only at a higher price since they're all underage.”
“You're eighteen years old,” Chris said. “You're underage, too.”
He rolled his eyes. “When my old man was my age, eighteen used to be legal in New York.”
“And this all works because you've got an inside connection with the family stores. At least for beer, right?”
Krispy shrugged. “Beer is enough. It gets you buzzed as good as anything else.”
“And that's it?” Chris spread his arms wide. “You've got nothing else to tell us.”
“You can't pin the weed on me, man. I'm not a drug dealer.”
Chris leaned back in the seat and scrutinized the kid. “What can you tell us about selling babies on the black market?”
Krispy's brows came together and he grinned. “For real? I don't know what you're talking about.”
“Your girlfriend does. We hear you were making noise about how you could make big money selling off the kids she babysits.”
“Eleni said that?” He laughed. “That's crazy shit.”
“You remember saying that?” Grace asked.
“Maybe. I dunno. It was a joke. I mentioned it when we saw it on the soaps she watches. Did she tell you that part? She's addicted to that one show. She lives in fear that it's going to be canceled like the rest of them.”
“So you saw it on a soap?” Grace asked.
“Y & R?”
“That one. She was all freaking out about Daisy's baby when we were watching the show, and I said there was good money in something like that.”
“But you didn't ask her to help you kidnap a child?”
“Hell, no. Do people really do that shit?”
“Unfortunately, people abduct infants,” Grace said. “That's why we're talking to you, Armand. What do you know about Annabelle Green?”
He rubbed his chin absently. “Who's she?”
“Name doesn't ring a bell?” Chris said. “You've met her, at least once.”
Krispy shook his head. “I'm drawing blanks. It's one of the kids Eleni takes care of, right?” Something seemed to click, and he squinted up at Chris. “This baby . . . that's the reason you brought me in tonight, isn't it? It wasn't about selling beer at all.” He raked his hands back through his dark hair and winced. “Shit.”
Although Chris continued to press Armand Krispalian, Grace was convinced there was nothing more here than a spoiled kid looking to take some shortcuts. He was not involved in selling babies; he was still a baby himself.
She tuned out, beginning to prioritize the hours ahead. They would return to grass-roots detective work, checking backgrounds and interviewing the neighbors, the receptionist at the doctor's office, the photographer who took Annabelle's photo at a department store. The circles started small, then got wider as they began to look at each and every person who had touched Annabelle Green's life.
Chapter 31
I
n Chelsea's dream she was walking through an open-air market in an arid Middle Eastern city. Baghdad or Istanbul. Walls of ancient stone rose behind the market, hemming everyone into the square blooming with color and music like the plaintive wail of a baby. Men in turbans and women concealed by veils moved past her like dancers, and all the fruits and olives and carpets for sale were hidden behind flowing veils.
A man with a machete stood alert and ready to hack down the veil concealing anything she chose to buy, but she didn't want anything but Annabelle. He kept pointing the machete to a curtain and asking, “You want to buy?”
But she couldn't afford anything except her daughter, and if he slashed the curtain it might hurt the baby.
“You want?” he kept asking as she hurried from one curtain to another, shiny silks and satins in red and purple, pink and turquoise.
Suddenly, a wind rose from the earth, blowing the curtains so that she could have a look inside. She moved toward a pink curtain, certain that Annabelle was behind it. . . .
And she was pulled from sleep by the squeal of a baby.
What? Annabelle!
She sat up in bed, shaking in a panic, and realized that it was not her baby crying but the howling of the dog next door.
Louise's dog, ChiChi.
And where was Annabelle? The wound was still fresh, exacerbated when she saw the empty bassinette against the bedroom wall. Her breasts were heavy with milk for her baby.
She squeezed her eyes shut as a small whimper squeezed from her throat. The dream had been so vivid . . . she had been close to reaching out and touching Annabelle's smooth skin, pressing her nose into the creases in her little neck.
She wanted to tell Leo about the dream, but the bed beside her was empty. He had never made it upstairs. Didn't it mean something that she wanted to find their daughter? That she had refrained from choosing a curtain for fear that Annabelle would be cut by the machete?
For the second night in a row, she had escaped to sleep, although last night it was a restless daze. She had floated on the surface of sleep, unable to sink down into oblivion. A good mother probably wouldn't have slept at all, but then she'd given up all pretense of goodness.
She pushed the covers aside and let her feet drop to the carpeting. It was dark outside, but a pasty dawn pinched the sky.
After she pumped, she pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt and headed downstairs. When she poked her head out from the staircase, she saw Leo on the couch with the computer on his lap.
“Since you didn't wake me, I know nothing good happened,” she said, coming down the stairs.
“You're right.” Leo rubbed his eyes as he explained that the detectives had interviewed Krispy, but they didn't think he had any involvement with Annabelle's disappearance.
“Oh.” She carried the bottle of breast milk into the kitchen to store it. Inside the fridge, more than a half dozen bottles were lined up and labeled, and as she added the new one she realized she would need to sterilize bottles soon. She needed her dishwasher working again, but then the plumber was supposed to come today.
How long did breast milk last? It had never been an issue before, as Leo enjoyed giving Annie bottles so much, the expressed milk had never sat in the fridge for long. She looked at the clock. Barely seven. She would wait until noon to pump again—every five hours, as Dr. Chin had suggested.
The kitchen was tidy now. Leo had straightened up, put away pots. He must have washed dishes by hand. She went into the bathroom to fill the coffeepot with water. When she peeked out of the kitchen again, Leo was dozing, the computer open in his lap. He must have been searching online for clues to find their baby.
She tiptoed past him, wanting to touch the bristled line of his jaw.
How she loved this man.
The smell of brewing coffee and the yapping dog next door made things seem almost normal again. She put bread in the toaster, but ChiChi's barking was growing frantic.
She went to the window, but she couldn't see anything from the angle of the kitchen. “What is the problem out there?” she murmured.
“Welcome home, ChiChi.” Leo's eyes were still closed.
Chelsea brought him a cup of coffee. “Maybe I should call the police about that barking dog.”
“Love your neighbor as yourself,” he said. “I say it's only fair, after Louise called the cops on us for a crying baby.”
“An abandoned baby,” she corrected, sitting beside him on the couch.
“Sitting right outside the door at, like, seven o'clock at night. It's not a crime,” he said. “This is not your fault. And just so you know, we're going to find our daughter.”
Holding his hand, she felt a kernel of strength taking hold. Something had shifted inside her and she felt more steady, more like her old self. Maybe it was the medicine, maybe it was having two nights of sleep in a row, or maybe it was the sharp dagger of crisis prodding her along, but now she felt ready to stand and help search for her daughter.
“You're right.” She squeezed Leo's hand. “We are going to find her, and she's going to be fine. She's okay, Leo. I can feel it. Our baby's okay. We just have to get to her.” Her eyes filled with tears, but she swiped them away with her free hand.
“She's okay,” he said.
“I know that Annie's all right. It's just that I know she needs us. I never really got that before but she needs her mom and dad. She's probably looking around for you, wanting the sound of your voice when you sing those silly songs. And she needs me to feed her. I hate to think of her missing that.”
Leo pulled her hand close and kissed it. “I'm glad to have the old Chelsea back.”
The old Chelsea, for better or worse. “I'm not sure you're going to want the old Chelsea when you hear what I have to say.”
“Try me.”
She thought of the dream again—the feeling that Annabelle was just inches away, within reach, if only she made the right choice. “This is going to sound crazy, but I'm going to say it and then maybe it'll help me get it out of my system and move on. Emma and Jake are talking about moving to Chicago. Like . . . soon.”
He nodded. “Jake mentioned the job offer.”
“The crazy part? It's a perfect setup if she really did have a miscarriage and took Annie. They could go and just raise her there, and no one would ever know.”
Leo took a sip of coffee. “You're right. It's crazy, but probable. It fits the profile of most infant abductions. But this is your sister we're talking about.”
“I know. It's not real but . . . I just had to give voice to it to disqualify it from reality.”
“You know what?” He stared off, his eyes dark and tormented. “Right now it would be a relief to know that Annabelle was with Jake and Emma. Even if we never could see her again, just to know that she was safe—”
“Don't go making any deals with the devil,” Chelsea said.
They were interrupted again by the sound of the yapping dog.
“Give me a break.” Leo looked at the clock. “Isn't it time for the old witch to be at the gym?”
It had always been Ms. Pickler's schedule: out of here by six a.m. But it was after seven and ChiChi was in the adjoining yard, barking up a storm.
Chelsea went to the door, but couldn't see anything. “You don't think maybe Louise got kidnapped last night?”
“Wishful thinking.” Leo went upstairs to get a look from the bedroom.
Chelsea went into the living room and picked up one of Annabelle's squishy blocks with a big purple Eeyore etched on the side. She was thinking of Annie trying to mouth the block when a muffled curse came down the stairs.
“What the hell . . . ?”
“What is it?” she called up.
“Call Detective Santos,” he shouted, appearing on the top landing. “Louise is out in her backyard, digging. I think she's burying something in the yard.”
“Why would she be out this time of year, digging in . . .” The horrifying answer to her own question sent Chelsea scrambling for the phone.
BOOK: All She Ever Wanted
11.63Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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