They say worrying and grief makes you age, but with Claire Biel it was almost the opposite. Her skin was drawn tight around her cheekbones — so tight the blood seemed to stop flowing. There were no lines on her face. She was pale and almost skeletal.
Myron flashed back to an ordinary memory. Study hall, senior year. They would sit and talk and he would make her laugh. Claire was normally quiet, often subdued. She spoke with a soft voice. But when he got her going, when he worked in all her favorite routines from stupid movies, Claire would laugh so hard she’d start to cry. Myron wouldn’t stop. He loved her laugh. He loved to see the pure joy when she let go like that.
Claire stared at him. Every once in a while you try to trace your life back to a time like that, when everything was so good. You try to go back and figure out how it started and the path you’d taken and how you ended up here, if there was a moment you could go back to and somehow alter and poof, you wouldn’t be here, you’d be someplace better.
“Tell me,” Claire said.
He did. He started with the party at his house, overhearing Aimee and Erin in the basement, the promise, the late-night phone call. He went through it all. He told her about the stop at the gas station. He even told her about Aimee talking about how things weren’t great with her parents.
Claire’s posture stayed rigid. She said nothing. There was a quake near her lips. Every once in a while she would close her eyes. There would be a slight wince, as if she spotted a coming blow but was unwilling to defend herself from it.
Neither spoke when he finished. Claire did not ask any follow-up questions. She just stood there and looked very frail. Myron took a step toward her, but he could see right away it was the wrong move.
“You know I’d never hurt her,” he said.
She did not reply.
“Claire?”
“Do you remember that time we met up at Little Park by the circle?”
Myron waited a beat. “We met up there a lot, Claire.”
“At the playground. Aimee was three years old. The Good Humor truck came along. You bought her a Toasted Almond Fudge.”
“Which she hated.”
Claire smiled. “You remember?”
“I do.”
“Do you remember what I was like that day?”
He thought about it. “I don’t know what you’re trying to get at.”
“Aimee didn’t know her limits. She would try everything. She wanted to go on that high slide. There was a big ladder. She was too young for it. Or at least that’s what I thought. She was my first child. I was so afraid all the time. But I couldn’t stop her. So I let her climb the ladder, but I would stay right behind her, remember? You made a crack about it.”
He nodded.
“Before she was born, I swore I’d never be one of those overprotective parents. Swore it. But Aimee is climbing up this ladder and I’m right behind her, my hands poised behind her butt. Just in case. Just in case she slipped because wherever you are, even someplace as innocent as a playground, all a parent imagines is the worst. I kept picturing her tiny foot missing a step. I kept seeing her fingers slipping off those rails and her little body tipping back and then she’d land on her head wrong and her neck would be at a bad angle…”
Her voice faded away.
“So I stayed behind her. And I was ready for anything.”
Claire stopped and stared at him.
“I’d never hurt her,” Myron said.
“I know,” she said softly.
He should have felt relief at that. He didn’t. There was something in her tone, something that kept him on the hook.
“You wouldn’t harm her, I know that.” Her eyes flared up. “But you’re not blameless either.”
He had no idea what to say to that.
“Why aren’t you married?” she asked.
“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“You’re one of the nicest, sweetest men I know. You love kids. You’re straight. So why aren’t you married yet?”
Myron held back. Claire was in shock, he told himself. Her daughter was missing. She was just lashing out.
“I think it’s because you bring destruction, Myron. Wherever you go, people get hurt. I think that’s why you’ve never been married.”
“You think — what? — that I’m cursed?”
“No, nothing like that. But my little girl is gone.” Her voice was slow now, one weighted word at a time. “You were the last to see her. You promised that you would protect her.”
He just stood there.
“You could have told me,” she said.
“I promised—”
“Don’t,” she said, holding up her hand. “That’s no excuse. Aimee wouldn’t have ever known. You could have pulled me aside and said, ‘Look, I told Aimee that she could call me if she had a problem.’ I’d have understood that. I’d have even liked it, because then I would have still been there for her, like with the ladder. I would have been able to protect her because that’s what a parent does. A parent, Myron, not a family friend.”
He wanted to defend himself, but the arguments wouldn’t come.
“But you didn’t do that,” she went on, her words raining down on him. “Instead you promised that you wouldn’t tell her parents. Then you drove her somewhere and dropped her off, but you didn’t watch out for her like I would have. Do you understand that? You didn’t take care of my baby. And now she’s gone.”
He said nothing.
“What are you going to do about that?” she asked.
“What?”
“I asked you what you’re going to do about it.”
He opened his mouth, closed it, tried again. “I don’t know.”
“Yeah, you do.” Suddenly Claire’s eyes seemed focused and clear. “The police are going to do one of two things. I can see it already. They’re backing away. Aimee took money out of an ATM machine before she called you. So they’re either going to dismiss her as a runaway or they’re going to think you were involved. Or both. You helped her run maybe. You’re her boyfriend. Either way, she’s eighteen. They’re not going to look hard. They’re not going to find her. They’ll have other priorities.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Find her.”
“I don’t save people. You yourself pointed that out.”
“Then you better start now. My daughter is gone because of you. I hold you accountable.”
Myron shook his head. But she was having none of it.
“You made her promise. Right here in this house. You made her promise. Now you do the same, dammit. Promise me you’ll find my baby. Promise me you’ll bring her home.”
And a moment later — the truly final what-if? — Myron did.
CHAPTER 19
Ali Wilder had finally stopped thinking long enough about Myron’s impending visit to call her editor, a man she generously referred to as Caligula.
“I just don’t get this paragraph, Ali.”
She bit back a sigh. “What about it, Craig?” Craig was the name her editor used when he introduced himself, but Ali was sure his real name was Caligula.
Before 9/11, Ali had a solid job with a major magazine in the city. After Kevin’s death, there was no way she could keep it. Erin and Jack needed her home. She took a sabbatical and then became a freelance journalist, mostly writing for magazines. At first, everyone offered her jobs. She refused them out of what she now saw as stupid pride. She hated getting the “pity” assignments. She felt above it. She now regretted that.
Caligula cleared his throat, making a production about it, and read her paragraph out loud: “The closest town is Pahrump. Picture Pahrump, rhymes with dump, as what’s left on the road if a buzzard ate Las Vegas and spit out the bad parts. Tackiness as art form. A bordello is made to look like a White Castle restaurant, which seems like a bad pun. Signs with giant cowboys compete with signs for fireworks stores, casinos, trailer parks, and beef jerky. All the cheese is American singles.”