“Just left you here by yourself.”
“She said she wasn’t coming back and I should wait here until Mom comes.”
These people — damn these selfish people! “How long has she been gone?”
“A while. Not too long after you left. I’m glad she didn’t try to make me go with her.”
“So am I.”
“I knew you’d come,” she said again. “I don’t know how, I just knew like before.”
“I shouldn’t’ve left you in the first place.”
“I can go with you now, can’t I? Now that Aunt Karen isn’t coming back?”
“Well, you can’t stay here by yourself, no matter what she told you.”
“I’d like to go home.”
“I know you would. I’ll take you if that’s where your mother is. But you can’t stay there alone, either.”
“Then where will I stay?”
“I can’t answer that yet. Someplace safe. You’ll have to trust me, Emily.”
“I trust you.”
Child’s mouth to God’s ear. I said, “Okay. Let’s go in and get your things together.”
While she went after her coat and suitcase I took a quick look around. Karen Meineke’s bedroom was in an even worse state of disarray than before, drawers pulled out, more clothing and empty hangers on the floor. The .38 was no longer hidden on the closet shelf. In both the front room and kitchen I hunted for a note, anything the woman might have left for her sister. Nothing. Getting away from here, fast, was all she’d cared about. Maybe later, when she was holed up somewhere and the grip of panic had eased, she might try to reestablish contact. Just as likely, she wouldn’t. I had only contempt for her whatever her intentions. The important thing was, she was all through putting her niece in harm’s way.
On the back of a business card I wrote “Contact me about Emily’s whereabouts.” I cleared a space on the breakfast bar, propped the card there against a glass. For good measure I laid another card, printed side up, next to it. If Karen Meineke did decide to come home, or if her sister showed up, maybe I’d get a call. But I’d be damn surprised if I did.
On the way to the car I asked Emily the question I’d neglected to ask earlier. “Do you have keys to your house? For the front door and the alarm system?”
“No, not anymore. Mom took them away when she found out I talked to you.”
“Some people hide spare keys in case they lose the ones they carry. You know, in the garage or under pots, places like that.”
“We never did.”
“Did she keep a spare house key in her studio?”
“I don’t think so. I never saw one there.”
“What about friends who might have one?”
“We don’t have many friends,” Emily said. “Why are you asking about keys?”
“If your mom’s not home, the house will be locked and the alarm system turned on.”
“But you said I couldn’t stay there alone... Oh. You want to go in and look around.”
“Would you mind?”
“No. I just want to find her.”
We were both silent until we rolled down through the woods to the intersection with Highway I. Then Emily said in a small, thin voice, “Something bad’s happened to her.” It wasn’t a question.
I had no response that didn’t sound phony or fatuous.
“I think she’s dead,” Emily said. “I think the man she was afraid of killed her.”
Smart — too smart for her own good. It was possible Sheila Hunter was dead, all right, though not by the hand or order of Philip Cotter. But it was equally possible she had decided to abandon her daughter, just as her sister had, to go on the run alone or with somebody else. The second explanation would be almost as much of a hammerblow to Emily’s fragile young psyche as the first.
Get her off this tack, for God’s sake, I thought. I said, “Emily, we just don’t know what the situation is. It’s easy to imagine the worst, but it doesn’t have to be that way. You know the phrase ‘Keep the faith’?” Fatuous as hell, but it was the best I could do.
“Yes.”
“Do that, then. Think good thoughts.”
“All right.” But her voice was listless.
After a little time I asked, “Do you know a lady named Dale Cooney, Mrs. Frank Cooney?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Don’t ever remember hearing the name?”
“No.”
“How about a Mr. Lukash — Doc Lukash.”
“He’s our dentist.”
“A friend of your mom’s, too?”
“No, just our dentist.”
“Did he ever come to your house?”
“Dentists don’t make house calls,” she said seriously.
“That’s right, they don’t. Tell me about Trevor Smith.”
“I don’t know very much about him.”
“He came to see your mom last Thursday night, didn’t he?”
“Yes. She was really upset that night.”
“She’d already told you by then that you were going away?”
“That morning. Mr. Smith made her more upset, but I don’t know why. Mom locked me in my room. She didn’t want me to hear what they were saying.”
Not a word about her mother smacking her. No teller of tales, this little girl. The value of privacy was one good lesson she’d learned from her parents.
“Could you hear anything they said?”
“No. They were in the living room and my room’s in the back.”
“So they didn’t raise their voices, make any noise?”
“No.”
“Did your mom say anything about Smith after he left?”
“No.”
“But she was still upset?”
“A little calmer, I guess.”
“Did anyone else come to the house before you left on Friday?”
“No.”
“Anyone call?”
“There was one call, but I don’t know who it was. Mom made me go in my room again.”
“Did the call upset her?”
“No.”
“Make her happy, relieved, anything like that?”
“No. She was the same afterward.”
We were out of Gualala now, heading down Highway I through the northern reaches of Sea Ranch. The fog was in and the afternoon had darkened perceptibly under its heavy gray pall. Almost five by the dashboard clock. Eight or so by the time we reached San Francisco, and then what?
I hauled up the mobile phone, punched out Emily’s home number from memory. A dozen rings, no answer. Emily was watching me; I could feel the weight of her eyes. She knew what number I was calling. Something bad’s happened to her. I think she’s dead. I held on to the receiver, looking straight ahead, trying to think through the mental echoes of Emily’s voice. Going on nine o’clock before I could get her to Greenwood — pretty late to be showing up on somebody’s doorsteps. We don’t have many friends. But there had to be somebody... the family of one of her classmates?
“Emily, who’s your best friend at school?”
“I don’t have a best friend.”
“No girlfriends? No one from the riding academy?”
“Well, there’s Tracy Dellman, I guess.”
“Tracy Dellman. Do you think her folks might let you stay with them for a few days?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never stayed there before.”
“What’s Tracy’s phone number?”
“We don’t talk much on the phone.”
“Where does she live?”
“Poplar Avenue. Number two-fifty, I think.”
I called directory assistance for the Greenwood area. No listing for a Dellman family on Poplar Avenue. Which meant I’d have to show up at their home at nine P.M., a stranger with a little girl in tow. Explanations, fuss... the prospect left me cold. There had to be somebody else...
“You know Mrs. Purcell, don’t you?” I asked. “The lady who runs the art gallery?”