Devil Smoke (13 page)

“You guys are Nellie’s friends, right?”

The boys nodded glumly while the girl beamed. “Of course we are. No one else would be,” Glinda said. “But Jesus teaches us to have compassion for those less fortunate.”

“And Nellie is less fortunate?” Lucy kept her tone neutral. Glinda seemed the know-it-all type. “How so?”

Glinda leaned forward and dropped her voice. “Her mother’s gone. And she lives with a monster.”

“A monster?”

“That’s what my mother told Mrs. Kersavage. She said the poor, poor girl should be taken away from that monster of a man.”

“Is that what happened today? Did someone come take her? Rescue her, maybe?”

The boys squirmed and looked at each other. Glinda glared at them, and they stilled. “Maybe.”

“What do you guys think?” Lucy turned to block the boys’ view of Glinda so they had no choice but to focus on her. “You seem pretty smart to me. I’ll bet you know what happened. Where is Nellie? Is she with anyone?”

Both boys looked down as if mesmerized by the paint stains on the table. Matthew shifted in his seat and mumbled something.

“What was that?”

“It was his fault.” The mumbling turned into a whine.

“Nah-uh. Glinda dared me to kick it over the wall.”

“So you guys were playing? That’s okay. No one’s going to get in trouble for that.” Lucy leaned forward as if part of the conspiracy. “What happened?”

“It was Nellie’s fault,” Glinda said from behind Lucy. Couldn’t resist regaining the spotlight—exactly what Lucy had hoped. “She didn’t have anyone to play with—she never does—and we told her she could play with us but only if she played ball-fetcher.”

“So you guys were kicking a ball around and Nellie ran to retrieve it?”

“We were having a kicking contest,” Glinda explained, as if that made it legit.

Joseph finally spoke up. “And I won,” he said. “I kicked it all the way over the wall.”

“But then the bell rang and we had to come back to class.” Glinda leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest, daring Lucy to challenge her. “It’s not our fault that Nellie didn’t get in before the doors closed.”

“And she hasn’t been in class since?”

“No. Miss Cortez would have noticed, but Sally Richards tripped and got an ouchie and was crying and then it was time to get cleaned up for Mass and then when we came back after lunch she said where’s Nellie? But we don’t know where Nellie is
now
, so we couldn’t bear false witness. Because that’s a sin.” Glinda finished with a jerk of her chin, her story, alibi, and rationalization all solid.

“Where was Nellie when you saw her last?”

Matthew answered. “She’s skinny. Was trying to get through the fence—I thought she was stuck, but when we got inside, I looked out the window and she was gone.”

“You looked out these windows? Can you show me where she was?”

He stood and marched up to stand beside Lucy, pointing out the window and across the playground to the wrought iron fence that wrapped around the compound. There was a gap in the hedge, just wide enough for a skinny girl to slide through the arborvitae and shimmy between the iron bars.

Beyond the bars was the church’s parking lot. And beyond that the street. Where anyone could have stopped for a little girl searching for a lost ball.

THE STREETS AROUND
Our Lady of Sorrows were blocked by police cars and barricades. Tommy had to repeat his story three times and show his ID before they finally waved Sarah into the parking lot beside the playground. He was out of the car before she turned it off, running toward the wrought iron gate at the school’s entrance.

TK was waiting for him there.

“Did you find her?” he asked as TK led him and Sarah into the playground. He spotted Don Burroughs standing with several other policemen, and from the expression on the detective’s face, he knew the answer.

“No,” TK said. “Lucy was able to find witnesses who saw her leaving the school grounds several hours ago.”

“Wait.” He spun to her but felt disconnected from his movements and his words, as if the entire world lagged a second behind. “Nellie
left?
How? Why?”

“The kids said they were playing, kicked a ball over the fence, and she squeezed between the bars to chase after it.”

“Which way? I need to start there—” He’d already turned to leave, anxious to do something, but she grabbed his arm and pulled him back.

“You can’t, Tommy. They need you here. We’ve a lot of people searching for Nellie, but we need to follow procedure so we don’t miss anything.” Her tone was gentle, as if instructing a child how to perform the complex act of standing still.

Every cell in his body strained to be released to join the hunt, but he took a breath and nodded. How well he remembered this, having a role to play: the stalwart, helpless family standing by, anxiously waiting. A role he despised for its absolute powerlessness. He needed to do something, anything, not stand around doing nothing.

He scrubbed his face, turning in a full circle, not remembering what came next.

TK seemed to understand, filling in the blanks for him. “Burroughs asked if you have a recent photo he can use. We’re still searching here—between the school, church, rectory, and convent, there’s a lot of ground to cover. But in the meantime, he’s getting the ball rolling on a public appeal. He’ll need a description of what she’s wearing as well.”

Tommy nodded, his lips suddenly too numb to form words. Sarah touched his arm in that way she had, but he barely felt it. “I’d like to help,” she told TK. “Maybe I can join the search?”

“Of course. Check in with Burroughs. He’ll tell you where to go.”

“Will you be okay?” Sarah asked, squeezing Tommy’s arm then letting go.

He hauled in a breath. “Yes. Thanks for helping.”

She left to join Burroughs. Tommy watched her, his vision dark around the edges.

“Tommy?” TK said. She might have been saying more, but he missed it. “The photo?”

He slid his phone free, his fingers hitting the wrong spots on the screen as he tried to pull up the photo gallery. TK took it from him, tapped the screen for a few moments, then held it up for his approval. “How’s this one? Okay?”

It was Nellie dressed for Easter. He had more recent photos, but he understood, somewhere in the dim recesses of his mind, that TK wanted a photo that clearly showed Nellie’s height and full face. Next she’d choose a close-up to accompany it. And then she’d be asking about distinguishing marks…

Time fractured, folding over itself as he remembered giving Burroughs Charlotte’s details, finding the right photos for the missing person flyers and then choosing different ones for the media and website her father set up, never knowing if choosing the wrong photo might somehow lead the public to not recognize Charlotte.

“A mole,” he said before TK could ask. “On her left ankle. About a centimeter in diameter. And a small scar below her chin from when she fell off the swing set last year.”

“Okay. I’ll let Burroughs know.” She left him to approach the detective.

Tommy stood alone. Alone amid the chaos. Helpless. Worthless. Lost.

In the ER his job was to control chaos. He was no miracle worker, never had a surgeon’s ego, fantasizing playing at God. He was simply a man who healed what he could as best he could.

Life and death decisions. Allocating resources and stretching them to meet overwhelming demand. Facing the families of the patients he lost. All of these he dealt with everyday. But that was life BC—before Charlotte went, when he’d been in control, before his power was stripped.

Even now, in his new, fragile life AC, after Charlotte, he thought he’d managed okay, fooled most people, played his new roles well. And always his priority was Nellie. Protecting her at all costs, even if it meant leaving the job he loved, forging a new dependency on Charlotte’s parents, living in limbo.

But limbo was a temporary dwelling. Sooner or later, you had to ascend into Heaven or fall into Hell.

As Tommy stood there, activity swirling around him, he closed his eyes and felt the flames singe him.

<><><>

AS
NELLIE SLEPT
in the arms of Holy Mary, Mother of God, she dreamed of Jesus raising the dead. They’d learned about Lazarus and how his family had to wait days before he returned to them.

Lying in the embrace of the smiling Virgin, somewhere in the deep recesses of her mind, Nellie found new hope. Miss Cortez had told them about how when God created the world in only six days, it didn’t mean six human days, but six of God’s days, which could have been a really, really long time. Well, maybe being missing was like waiting to be raised up by Jesus—and maybe three days in Jesus-time was like a year in Nellie-time.

In her dreams, she chased after her mother, playing tag in a large field of wildflowers so bright their colors ran together like a rainbow. But as fast as Nellie ran, she could never quite catch up… her mother was always just out of reach.

“Mommy!” she screamed, waking up so fast it was like a slap, stealing the breath from her, leaving her gasping as she fought free of the wooden embrace of the statue.

“Nellie, it’s okay.” A woman’s voice soothed her.

Nellie blinked. The door was open; a woman knelt in front of her. Before Nellie could say anything, the woman pulled Nellie into her arms. “Oh, my poor baby. Are you okay?”

Still groggy from her restless sleep, Nellie wrapped her arms around the woman. She smelled so good. “Mommy?”

The woman—not Mommy, Nellie knew, but she also didn’t want to know—pulled back the tiniest bit, although she kept one palm on Nellie’s head, smoothing her hair, banishing the last trace of the nightmare. “Oh, sweetie, I’d love to be your mommy. We’d have so much fun. And I know how much you miss her. Is that why you came down here?”

It was too much to put into words, so Nellie just nodded and buried her head in the woman’s hair again. The woman held her, patting her back. “My name’s Sarah. I’m a friend of your dad’s. He’s very worried about you.”

“Daddy’s here?” Sarah asked the woman’s hair.

“Yes. He was scared something happened to you.”

“Like going missing? Like Mommy did?” That was just wrong. Nellie crinkled her face, thinking. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“But sweetie, you kind of did. You’ve been gone hours. Everyone is worried.”

“Sister Agnes knows?” Sister Agnes was about the only person who scared her more than Jesus-nailed-to-the-cross.

“Yes, she does. But don’t worry. I’ll handle her. You’re not in any trouble.”

Nellie wasn’t sure if she should trust the strange woman, this Sarah. But she hugged just like Mommy and she smelled just like Mommy and she was a friend of Daddy’s… “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” Sarah set Nellie on her feet and brushed off her dress, wiped her face. “Let’s go find your daddy and tell him all about your adventures. Okay?”

Nellie took Sarah’s hand—if she was going to face Sister Agnes, it was better to have an adult close by her side—and led the way out. She couldn’t help pausing one last time at the door to look back at the Virgin Mother, but the magic was gone. The statue was just a hunk of dead wood.

TOMMY STOOD ROOTED
to his spot just inside the school’s gate. In his haze, people came and went, asking questions, trying to get him to move inside where he could sit down, offering him water, distraction, privacy from the press who’d arrived and were camped beyond the fence. He barely heard them. All his attention was fixated on Don Burroughs. Any news, good or bad, Burroughs would get it first.

The detective was the center of a constant swirl of activity, speaking on his radio or cell phone, getting reports in person, scrutinizing a tablet computer screen. Occasionally he’d glance over to Tommy, give him a nod of acknowledgment. Not encouragement or false hope, just letting a terrified parent know that everything that could be done was being done.

Tommy wasn’t sure if he nodded back or not. The world spun beneath his feet, oblivious to the petty concerns of the humans who trod upon it, and he was dizzy with powerlessness. There was nothing he could do to bring Nellie back. No thing.

His heart wasn’t just broken by the thought. It was emptied. Cracked down to the foundation and bled dry.

“Daddy!”

He jerked his head up. Had he imagined the voice he’d been praying so desperately to hear?

“Daddy!”

Tommy saw Burroughs track to the church’s back steps, delight filling his usually sour face, and he knew it wasn’t a mirage—it was truth. He followed the detective’s gaze just as a whirlwind of purple and pink raced across the playground and tackled him.

“Daddy!” The exclamation was muffled as he lifted Nellie into his arms, hugging her tight, her face against his shoulder. He opened his mouth but had no words.

Burroughs came over with Sarah.

“Where was she?” the detective asked. Before Sarah could answer, he clicked on his radio to recall his men and pass the word of the happy resolution.

“Church basement. She found the storeroom where they keep the holiday altar decorations,” Sarah explained. “Was asleep in Mary’s lap between the shepherds and Baby Jesus.”

Tommy wiped his tears on Nellie’s hair, blinked back more. Through their rainbow haze, he saw Sister Agnes approach to face Burroughs. “Detective, you have my most sincere apologies over this unnecessary disruption of your routine. I assure you, it will never happen again.”

“I’m glad the girl was found, but—”

“I told them she wasn’t lost. There will be consequences, rest assured.” The last was accompanied by a glare at Tommy and Nellie.

Tommy turned away, shielding Nellie from the nun’s wrath, and came face to face with Sarah, who stood looking uncertain and very much alone. “Thank you,” he told her. The words were clich
é and meaningless, but he had no better to offer. “Thank you.”

She blushed. “I was glad to help.”