Leigh (30 page)

But unable to force herself to bring their conversation to an end, she stood talking to him about what they’d seen. Before
she knew it, Carly was coming home with her best friend—red-haired and freckled Katy. “Hi,” Carly said, looking up at Nate
and assessing him. “I’m Carly.”

Leigh took her daughter’s hand, and even as she introduced the two of them, she was urging her daughter up the steps into
their apartment building. Looking thoughtful, Nate took the hint, waved, and left.

Carly looked back as he walked away, tugging against Leigh. “Is that your boyfriend?”

“No.” She’d be careful next time and watch her timing better. She didn’t need Carly getting the wrong idea. She and Nate were
just working on an article together. And had they
even discussed a “next time”? This might have been their last meeting.

Carly stopped in the narrow vestibule. “Why don’t you ever have boyfriends? Katy says that if I don’t have a daddy, you gotta
have a boyfriend.”

“How was school today?” Leigh asked, totally ignoring her daughter’s words and hoping this wasn’t the last time she’d see
Nate Gallagher. Even though that probably would be best. For one second, she longed to do what wasn’t best, but to do what
she wanted.

She wanted to kiss Nate Gallagher.

“Was my daddy your boyfriend?” Carly looked up at her intently.

Like icy water splashed down her spine, her daughter’s question immediately quenched all thought of kissing Nate.

“And if you and him aren’t dating anymore,” Carly went on, “why can’t you get another boyfriend? Katy says you’re pretty.
All the girls think I have the prettiest mom—”

“That’s nice,” Leigh cut in, her heart beating fast. The whole topic of boyfriends had the power to panic Leigh. She was unlucky
in love. She’d found that out the hard way. And her daughter was only ten. What did she know about boyfriends? Or need to
know? “What do you want for supper?”

Carly looked into Leigh’s eyes for a long moment and then subsided. Her shoulders down, she stomped up the steps without looking
back. Her body language broadcast her dissatisfaction with her mother’s lack of candor.

Leigh’s heart split in two for her daughter.
I’m sorry, Carly. I’ll explain everything when you’re old enough to understand. I can’t tell you the truth yet. The truth
could damage you more than my silence. I will tell you when the time is right. Promise.

L
eigh kept her eye on the wall clock in the clingy office. It was Friday afternoon, and she had to be on time to pick up Carly
after dance. But she still had a few minutes to complete this interview. After she’d finished her article into the facts of
gang activity in New York City, she’d decided to delve into what was being done to combat it. Nate had given her the names
and phone numbers of some community groups that were working with gang members who wanted to get out. This one was funded
by churches and supported a live-in shelter for the “lost.”

“So you see, we are trying to use the love of Christ,” the earnest young black man explained, “to help these young people
whose lives are taking them straight toward early graves or life in prison.”

“Have you had much success?” Her pen poised over her faithful steno pad.

“Many. Would you like to speak to one whose life this ministry turned around?”

“Sure. When could I—”

“Right now. Here I am.” The young man grinned at her. “I’ve been clean for four years now. I became a heroine addict when
I was only fifteen.”

Leigh’s eyes widened.

“And there’s someone who recognized your name when you called for an interview. Would you like to talk to her, too? Her story
is quite remarkable.”

Something in the young man’s tone of voice alerted her to expect something or someone that would surprise her. But after years
of interviewing, she was very hard to surprise, as he would find out. “Of course.”

He went to the door and opened it. “Ms. Sinclair says
she’d like to talk to you, too.” He stepped back and ushered in a plump woman with short brown hair, wire-rim glasses, and
a dark skirt and blouse.

The shock of recognition shook Leigh to her core; her pen dropped to the floor. She gawked. “
Mary Beth?”

Mary Beth closed the distance between them. “Leigh, oh, Leigh, it
is
you.”

Quivering, Leigh rose and opened her arms. Mary Beth wrapped hers around Leigh, too. Minutes passed as Leigh hugged and was
hugged. Tears flowed and were ignored. It was a time of unadulterated joy, of release, of cleansing.

Finally, Leigh wiped her cheeks with her hands and staggered back onto her chair. “I have to sit down. I feel weak. Why didn’t
you warn me?”

Mary Beth sat in another straight chair opposite her, beaming at her. “I just couldn’t. It was like if I’d let you know I
worked here, I’d have chickened out again today. Many times I’ve almost called your mother to find out where you were living.
But I always… I couldn’t get past the last time I saw you. I was so wasted on drugs and felt so lost—”

“Why did you leave?” Leigh asked, dabbing around her eyes trying to wipe away her smeared mascara. “I wanted to help you.”

“I wasn’t ready to be helped,” Mary Beth said simply. “A drug addict has to be at the point of no return. I was still playing
out my ‘counterculture, self-destructive, rebel-with-a-cause’ premise. Two years later, I woke up from a bad acid trip that
must have lasted for days. A woman was sitting beside my bed at a Salvation Army shelter. She was holding my hand and praying
out loud.

“I lay there and listened to her praying so urgently, so lovingly, for me—a stranger, a drug addict, a failure. Something
snapped into place in my mind. I didn’t want to die.
And I wanted to know how a stranger could love me that much.”

Mary Beth shrugged and made a wry face. “I’d never even been to church, you know. My parents were agnostics. I’d never heard
about the love of God for sinners like me, the chance to be born again.”

Leigh tried to put this Mary Beth with the Mary Beth who’d stolen money from her in San Francisco and then with the girl she’d
attended high school with and shook her head. “I just can’t believe this. How long have you been in New York City?”

“Almost five years now. I stayed at the Salvation Army until I was clean from drugs for over a year. Then as a new Jesus freak—”
Mary Beth gave one of her puppy-dog grins. “—I signed up with Campus Crusade for Christ and began working on campuses in California,
one-on-one with kids starting to make the same mistake I did. I met another CCC staff member at a conference.” Mary Beth blushed.
“We fell in love, and we married.”

“I’m so happy for you, Mary Beth.” Leigh had given up on ever seeing her friend again. Kitty would be thrilled and so would
Cherise. “When can you come—” Then she glanced at the clock. And felt her stomach contract with guilt pangs.
Oh, no. “
Mary Beth, I’ve got to run. I’m going to be late picking up my daughter from her dance lessons. I promised I wouldn’t be late.”
Leigh leaped up. “Call me. I gave the young man my card.”

Outside, Leigh grabbed the first taxi and rode it to the nearest subway, and then she was on her way to the dance studio.
She fretted as her watch ticked away the minutes, and she began preparing her excuse and how to repay her daughter for being
later than she ever had before. She ran all the way from the subway station and reached the dance studio.

The silent, dark, locked-up studio where Carly was nowhere to be seen.

It was like a nightmare. She tried the door. It was locked up tight. She called her daughter’s name. She ran along the block
looking into doorways. She finally stopped at the phone booth on the corner and dialed Katy’s number.
Dear God, let her have gone home with Katy’s mom. “
Hi, this is Leigh. I’m sorry I was late again. Is Carly with you?”

“No,” Katy’s mom said, “Katy was sick today and didn’t go to school or dance. Is something wrong?”

Leigh’s heart thundered, and she hung up. Faintness made her sway.

L
eigh stood petrified, insensate. Finally, her mind eased back to consciousness.
What do I do now? What do I do now?

She left the phone booth and wandered down the block again, directionless.
This can’t be happening. No. “
Carly,” she called again and then more urgently, “
Carly!”
It was dark now and cold. Shivering, Leigh felt hysteria lurking just behind her throat. In a moment, she’d be screaming and
screaming—panicked—out of control…

Then Nate’s face came to mind. She ran back to the phone. Within seconds, the line was ringing.
Please pick up. Please pick up. Please
—

“Gallagher here.”

“Nate,” she gasped, shuddering, “it’s… Leigh.”

“What’s wrong?” he demanded.

“I… can’t find Carly.”

“Your little girl?”

“Yes,” she replied and began weeping, cold tears sliding down her face. “I’m so frightened,” she wailed, “I can’t think—”

“Where are you?”

She had to pause to remember, and then she gave him the dance studio’s address.

“Could your daughter have gone home with a friend?”

“Her friend didn’t go to dance today.” His calm businesslike manner and questions were helping her focus. “She’s home sick.”

“Is there any chance that she might have gone home with someone else or the dance teacher?”

“I don’t know. That wouldn’t be normal. I don’t know.”

“Wait at the entrance of the dance studio. I’ll come and look over the situation, and we’ll go from there.”

“
Thank you.”
She hung up and stood, clinging to the telephone, gasping as if she’d been running. People passed by, bundled up, hurrying
home. She watched them, envying them. Finally, she pulled herself together enough to return to the entrance. Alone on the
bleak and windy street, she began silently reciting the Twenty-third Psalm.

If someone had asked her this morning, she would have said she didn’t even remember more than its beginning, “The Lord is
my shepherd.” But now the words came to her, lifting her onto their strong, comforting shoulders. God would help her. Grandma
Chloe had always said so. And she needed to believe that now, to believe in Him
now. “
Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.”

Carly, please, I hope you’ve just been disobedient and have gone home with a friend without telling me. Please. Please, God,
let this just be naughtiness.

It was past midnight. Leigh sat at her kitchen table, a cold mug of tea untouched in front of her. In the living room, Aunt
Kitty had finally fallen asleep in a recliner under a crocheted
afghan. Nate was on the phone again. The three of them had spent the evening calling all of Carly’s friends, the owner of
the dance studio, the dance teacher, Carly’s principal. And they’d found out nothing except that the dance teacher had left
before Carly was picked up. She’d had a doctor’s appointment. So Carly had been left waiting for Leigh, not in the studio
vestibule, but outside, on the street.

Nate hung up at the end of another long phone call and then stretched his shoulders. “I’ve done all I can.” He gripped the
back of the chair across from her. “Unfortunately, the law says that Carly isn’t missing until she’s been gone for twenty-four
hours.”

“She could be taken to another country in twenty-four hours,” Leigh railed, sour and aching. “What’s wrong with people? This
isn’t the horse-and-buggy days. If she was taken and put on a plane, she could be in
China
by then.” Her self-control was spinning… lurching.

Nate came to her and squeezed her shoulder, steadying her. “I know. The law needs to be changed in the case of children. But
right now we’re stuck with it. Fortunately, my family has been part of the NYPD for three generations, and I have a lot of
friends. I’ve called in favors, and tonight
unofficially
almost every cop who’s cruising is looking for Carly. An unofficial APB. My dad called a friend in the New York State Police
and did the same thing. On the Q-T, every state cop is watching for a little girl with long, dark hair named Carly. We have
to have faith that she’ll be found.”

Gratitude to Nate gushed up like a geyser inside her. She sprang up and threw her arms around his neck, the weeping she’d
held back for hours bursting forth. Rock steady, he held her as she cried until she couldn’t weep another tear.

When she could speak again, she couldn’t stop herself from repeating the same phrases she’d said all evening, “It’s
not a bad neighborhood. It wasn’t dark yet. She should have been fine. I was only ten minutes late.”

“Stop torturing yourself.” Nate held her close. She felt the stubble of new beard growth against her forehead. “You didn’t
cause this. Kids are snatched sometimes right off their front steps with their mothers watching from a window.”

“What do you think has happened to my daughter?” she whispered her deepest fear. As she rested her head on his shoulder, she
found it was just the right height for her to lean on. And she, the single mother, the liberated woman, needed a man to lean
on right now. Not any man, but this man. Nate Gallagher.