Now You See Her (19 page)

I don’t have the patience for your despair, Marcy thought. “I have to go. I have a French test first period.”

“Then you should run along,” her mother said, abruptly shifting gears, both hands waving Marcy out of the room. The remaining necklaces hanging from her wrists tumbled to the floor.

Marcy turned and fled the room.

“Good luck on your test,” her mother called after her.

“You just left her like that?” Judith demanded when they passed each other in the school corridor later that morning.

“What was I supposed to do? I didn’t see you sticking around.”

“Whatever. Did you call Dad?”

“He was in court. I left him a message.”

“She’ll be all right,” Judith said. “She always is.”

“Yeah,” Marcy agreed, thinking that maybe at lunch she’d go home to make sure.

Except that when it came time for lunch, she chose to go out with a bunch of friends to a nearby greasy spoon instead. If the experience of the past fifteen years had taught her anything, she reasoned, it was that nothing she could do would make any difference. Her mother would spend the next few weeks in a progressive downward spiral of crying jags and incoherent babbling, and then she’d likely disappear for a few days, maybe even weeks, living on the streets and sifting through garbage bins until somebody recognized her and brought her home.

And then the cycle would start all over again.

Except it didn’t.

At two o’clock that afternoon she and Judith were summoned into the principal’s office, where two uniformed officers were waiting to inform them that their mother had committed suicide by jumping off the roof of a ten-story office building near the busy intersection of Yonge and St. Clair.

“Don’t feel guilty,” Judith told her as they waited for their father to pick them up from school and take them home.

Marcy nodded. She didn’t feel guilty about her mother’s death. She felt relieved.

And for that, she’d felt guilty ever since.

“MARCY?” VIC CALLED
softly from the bed. “What are you doing?”

Good question, Marcy thought, turning from the window where she’d been staring out at the closed curtains of the upstairs window of the bed and breakfast next door, trying to make sense of everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. Hell, why stop there? she wondered. How about the last twenty-four years? The last fifty? When had her life ever made any kind of sense? “What time is it?” she asked, wrapping her pink cotton bathrobe tighter around her. What was Vic Sorvino doing in her bed? How the hell had she let this happen?
Again
. What was the matter with her? Yes, he was an attractive man, and yes, he made her feel wanted and desirable and even beautiful. But she was hardly a teenager, for God’s sake, easily seduced by a few well-chosen words. Had she no self-control whatsoever?

Vic reached for his watch on the tiny nightstand beside the bed. “A little after nine,” he said, laying the watch back down and sitting up, the sheet falling across his naked torso. “You hungry?”

Marcy shook her head no. “You?”

“Not really. How’s the cheek?”

“Okay.”

“Think that eye could use some more ice?”

“No. I hear the raccoon look is very big for fall.”

Vic chuckled, patted the space beside him. “Come back to bed.”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.” Marcy shrugged. “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.” How did this happen? she wanted to shout. How did you end up in my bed?

Except she already knew the answer. This was all her doing. They’d barely made it up the stairs before her lips were reaching hungrily for his. She was tearing at his shirt before she’d even closed the door to her room. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”

“There’s absolutely nothing the matter with you,” Vic said.

“I practically attacked you, for God’s sake.”

“I don’t recall any protests on my part.”

“I normally don’t act that way.” She laughed. “Except, of course, for the last time we were together.”

“And you asked me what I’m doing here?” he said, sardonically.

“What
are
you doing here, Vic?”

The air turned suddenly serious. “I told you. I was worried about you.”

“Don’t be.”

“Can’t help it. It seems I’ve grown quite attached.”

“That’s probably not a very good idea.”

“On the contrary, I think it’s the best idea I’ve had in years.”

“Why?”

“Why?”
he repeated, shaking his head. “I’m not sure I can answer that. I don’t know. Maybe I sense a kindred soul.”

“Or maybe you just feel sorry for me.”

“I feel many things for you,” he shot back quickly. “Sorry isn’t one of them.”

Marcy smiled in spite of her attempt not to.

“Come back to bed,” he said again.

What the hell? Marcy thought. Why not? It wasn’t as if she had anything better to do. It was after nine, it was dark, everything hurt, she had a black eye and a sore cheek, and the odds of her finding Devon if she went out again tonight were almost nil. Plus she was exhausted. She lay down on the bed, Vic’s arms immediately encircling her, his body fitting neatly around hers, as if it belonged there.

“We can go out again, if you’d like. Make the rounds of all the pubs,” he said, as if reading her mind. “Maybe we’ll see her.”

Marcy shook her head, feeling Vic’s breath warm against the back of her neck. “We won’t see her.”

“We might.”

“No. She knows I’m here. She doesn’t want me to find her.”

“You don’t know that for sure.”

“I don’t know much, that’s for sure.”

“Tell me what kind of trouble she was in,” Vic said.

“What?”

“You told me in Dublin that Devon was in some sort of trouble.”

“Yes,” Marcy said. Had she told him that?

“With the police?”

“She’d gotten mixed up with some guy who was into cocaine, which of course was the last thing Devon needed. It just made her more depressed.”

“What happened?”

“They went to a party one night. It got kind of loud. A neighbor called the police. They found drugs. Devon was charged along with everyone else. Our lawyer scheduled a meeting with the Crown attorney. He thought that because of Devon’s condition, we might be able to persuade him to drop the charges if she’d agree to get help.”

“And?”

“The weekend before that meeting was supposed to take place, Devon went up to our cottage.” Marcy’s voice caught in her throat. “She never came back.”

“You’ll find her, Marcy. You’ll bring her home.”

There was a long silence. “What if it’s not her?” Marcy asked, the question she hadn’t permitted herself even to contemplate until now. “What if Peter and Judith and the police are right? I only saw her for half a second through a window that was covered with beer ads. Maybe it wasn’t her. Maybe she wasn’t the girl I saw standing on the bridge. Maybe I’m as crazy as everyone thinks I am.”

“I don’t think you’re crazy.”

“You married your realtor,” Marcy reminded him.

Vic laughed. “I guess sometimes we just want so badly to stop hurting, we do crazy things.”

“Is that what I’m doing?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I’d like to be here when you find out.”

Marcy flipped over onto her back, her eyes seeking his. “You really are the nicest man,” she said as she reached for him again.

SHE AWOKE TO
the sound of bells ringing.

Except they weren’t bells, she realized, sitting up and looking
toward her purse on the floor next to the bed. The ringing was coming from inside her bag. It was her phone.

Careful not to disturb the man still sleeping beside her, Marcy grabbed her purse, taking it with her into the bathroom and closing the door behind her, perching on the side of the tub, feeling the enamel cold against her bare skin. “Hello?” she whispered.

“I think I might have found her,” Liam said without further preamble.

“What?” Was she dreaming? “How?”

“Well, I’ve been asking around, as you know, and it looks like it’s finally paid off. I just got a call from an acquaintance of mine. He says that a girl matching your daughter’s description recently rented a small house just down the way from his ex-wife. He saw her yesterday when he went to visit his kids.”

“There are a lot of girls matching my daughter’s description,” Marcy told him.

“This one’s named Audrey.”

Marcy gasped, quickly covering her mouth with her hand and trying to contain her budding excitement. “Where is she?”

“A tiny village very close to here, called Youghal.”

“Yawl?” Marcy repeated, pronouncing it as he had.

“I’ll pick you up in twenty minutes,” he said.

M
ARCY WAS HALFWAY DOWN
the main staircase of the Doyle Cork Inn when Vic’s voice stopped her. She froze, looking back to see him standing at the top of the stairs, her pink cotton bathrobe draped carelessly across his shoulders and tied haphazardly around his waist, his legs and feet bare. He’d been sleeping so soundly, she hadn’t wanted to disturb him. Or at least that’s what she’d told herself as she was rushing to get dressed.

“Marcy, what’s happening?”

“I have to go.” Why hadn’t she woken him up? she wondered now. Why hadn’t she told him where she was going? Surely she owed him that much.

“Where? It’s not even seven thirty.” He looked around, as if despite his serious state of undress, he was considering coming after her.

“We might have found Devon,” she said again, hurrying down the remaining stairs toward the front door.

“Who’s ‘we’?”

Was that the reason she hadn’t told Vic where she was going? Because she didn’t want him to see her with Liam? Or was it because she didn’t want Liam to see her with Vic?

Sadie Doyle suddenly appeared in the small foyer, a bright green apron completely covering the front of her blue, flower-print dress, a large wooden spoon in her hand. “Good morning, Mrs. Taggart. Lovely day out there this morning. Will you be joining us for breakfast?” Her glance drifted toward the stairs, her face registering both surprise and amusement at the sight of a half-naked Vic Sorvino. “Oh. Hello.”

“Give me a minute to get dressed,” Vic urged Marcy, ignoring Sadie Doyle’s salacious gaze. “I’ll come with you.”

“No. Please. I don’t know if there’s room.”

“You understand that there’s an extra charge for overnight guests,” Sadie Doyle said to Marcy, her eyes remaining firmly on Vic.

“Fine. Whatever.” Marcy’s hand was already reaching for the door.

“Marcy, wait.”

“I can’t,” Marcy said. “I’ll call you later.” Then she opened the door and rushed out onto the street.

“Marcy …,” she heard him call after her.

The street was already congested with heavy morning traffic. She didn’t even know what kind of car Liam drove, Marcy realized, peering into the front window of each passing automobile. “Where are you, Liam?” she cried, looking up and down the busy street. Damn it, where was everybody going so early?

She checked her watch. Not quite twenty minutes had passed since Liam’s surprise phone call. In that time she’d
washed, brushed her teeth, pulled on a pair of jeans and a gray sweater, and tucked her uncombed hair into a jeweled clip at the back. Stubborn tresses were now pushing against the clasp, rebelling against their confinement. Several maverick curls had already wormed their way to freedom, shooting off in a number of different directions, like a fireworks display. There’d been no time for makeup, just a hastily applied streak of lipstick as she was tiptoeing from the room.

What difference did any of that make? Marcy told herself. They’d found Devon. She was less than an hour away from seeing her daughter again.

She wondered again why she hadn’t told Vic about Liam’s phone call and where she was going. What had stopped her? She’d felt so safe, so comfortable, so secure in his arms. Her breath had come freely and without pain for the first time in months, maybe years. Despite everything that had happened, despite everything experience had taught her, she’d actually found herself starting to relax her guard.

And wasn’t that when disaster always struck?

Maybe that was why she hadn’t told him.

“Come on, Liam,” she muttered now. Every minute counted. A minute could mean the difference between finding her daughter and losing her again. They couldn’t afford to waste any time.

I could call him, Marcy thought, reaching into her purse for her cell phone, then deciding against it. She was overreacting. She had to calm down. If there was a problem, Liam would phone.

In the months after Devon’s supposed drowning, Marcy had often dreamed her daughter had phoned and asked to meet her somewhere—at Starbucks in the Spadina Village, beside the Carole Tanenbaum vintage jewelry collection at Holt’s, at the ferryboat entrance to the Toronto Island. And always something
kept coming up that stopped them from reuniting. Marcy would wake up day after day in a pool of frustrated tears. Eventually Peter stopped asking what her dreams were about. He soon gave up trying to comfort her altogether.

And he
had
tried, Marcy realized, pacing back and forth in front of the Doyle Cork Inn. At least for a little while. Until her pain had proved too much for him to bear. Until her grief had threatened to overwhelm them both.

And then he’d run.

Like I’m doing now, she thought, hearing a door open behind her and turning to see Vic, now fully dressed, step outside onto the inn’s front landing, his blue eyes searching out hers, his kind face full of questions. “Marcy,” he said, and she felt herself swaying toward him.

A series of loud, staccato honks filled the air as a small black car suddenly pulled to a stop beside her, its passenger door opening, a hand beckoning her inside. A handsome face with sleepy green eyes suddenly filled her frame of vision. “Get in,” Liam said, taking off before she was fully seated, before she’d even had time to close the door.

Marcy turned back for a final glance in Vic’s direction. What he must think of me, she thought, immediately chasing such thoughts from her mind. She had other more important things to think about now than Vic’s hurt feelings. There would be plenty of time for explanations and amends after she was reunited with her daughter.