I met the first man with my right elbow held up high and rigid, ducking low to catch him at the base of the throat. He flipped over backward onto the wet sidewalk, crashing down hard. Georj and the other guy had a hold of each other already—and before I could get to him, the stranger had whipped his forehead down to butt Georj in the middle of his face. Georj fell back, sliding down the side of the cab.
I felt a hand grab me on the right shoulder and dropped low again as I turned hard left, the opposite to what most people would do. By the time I’d twisted quickly around, the guy was pulled off balance, and I planted my fist hard into his side. Our faces were close enough for his coughed exhale to spatter over my face.
I slammed my kneecap into the side of his thigh just above the knee, trapping the nerve, and felt him drop again as the other assailant stopped hitting Georj and grabbed me around the throat with both hands.
He was stronger and more focused than the other guy and slung me back against the hood of the car. I bounced off it awkwardly and slid to crash onto the cobbles—but he stepped in toward me too fast.
I kicked my leg in a wide, low arc, catching him around the back of the calf. He stumbled, dropping enough that I could meet his face with my shoulder as I came back up. He went over on his side, and I lowered my foot hard onto the fingers of his right hand.
The other guy was reaching into his coat now, and I turned toward him, wanting him to put himself in a position where it had to play out. I don’t think I even remembered I didn’t have a weapon of my own. I don’t believe I was thinking at all. I had just become the man who was doing this thing, powered by anger, fueled by the need to hurt someone for the sudden and inexplicable hole in the center of my life.
“No,” the guy I’d taken down said, but not to me.
The other man hesitated. Took his hand back out of his coat. Then the two of them ran quickly and quietly up the street.
Georj was crouched by the side of his cab, hands over his face. I squatted in front of him, panting hard, and pried his hands away. There was a lot of blood under his nose, down his chin, over his jacket. Before he could stop me, I felt on either side of his nose. He swore hard, tried to shove my hand away.
“You’re okay,” I said. “It’s not broken.”
I stood up. Looked back up the street. The two men had disappeared. “Who were they?”
“What?” The driver was standing now, sorting through his keys with trembling hands. He was looking at me like I was something that had just crawled in out of the bay, some animal with dripping teeth.
“You heard. Who were they?”
He shook his head, as if in disbelief.
“What the fuck is your problem?” I said, grabbing the door as he climbed into the car. “I just saved your ass. Who were those men?”
“How you think I know?”
“Oh, come on,” I said. “They didn’t get you this time, but they’re going to come back. You play dumb and—”
“I don’t know!” he shouted. “I am not criminal. Not here, not there. I have degree in biochemistry.”
“But—”
“You right, wise guy. I do spend time talk to police. My sister was journalist in St. Petersburg. Was murdered three year ago. That’s how I talk them.” He stabbed a finger up at my face. “What about you, huh? What you do?”
He spit at my feet, slammed the door, and drove away.
I was left standing in the middle of the alley. It suddenly seemed very quiet, the city silent but for the distant honks and sirens of life going on elsewhere. I did not feel like myself, and my fists hurt.
I turned and looked back up the street.
chapter
THIRTEEN
Alison was in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, supported on both hands. The light outside the window was gray-blue, an unwelcome dawn. She knew she had to turn, to look at her husband. She knew they had to say more things to each other, although she’d said everything she could think of, and she believed Simon knew that. Even though her head felt like it was about to split down the middle, she knew she had to turn around. How do you look anyone in the eye on a day like this?
It doesn’t matter. You have to do it anyway.
She turned. Her husband was sitting at the table. He was exhausted and horror-struck but bright and alert and can-do. She recognized the look. It was how he appeared when he knew something had to be done but had no idea what it was. It was a signal of readiness. A way of saying, “I know I’m not doing anything, but look—I’m ready to.” He glanced up, a question on his face.
“No,” she said. “Nothing else.” Her voice was hoarse. That would be the talking, and yesterday’s screaming. The screaming when she’d gone out onto the beach, then back and all through the house, and out the front into the yard between the cottage and the highway, and over to the other side of the road, and then straight through the house again and out over the dune to the windy beach. When she’d gotten to the beach again, she realized they hadn’t walked in the morning and hoped maybe her daughter had taken it upon herself to do the walk alone. Alison had run a long, long way up the sand, far past the point the family had ever been before. Then she’d returned, past the cottage and at least as far in the opposite direction. Nothing, nobody, no sign.
She came back into the house, tried to regain a little calm, to think positive. Waited what felt like an hour but had barely been fifteen minutes. Then went out onto the beach once more, up and down, trying to search properly, to stop herself from panicking again.
Finally she went to ask the neighbors if they’d noticed a little girl. On one side was an ancient couple who’d been there since the Jurassic period but whom the O’Donnells barely knew. Neither looked as if they’d be guaranteed to notice a tactical missile strike on their house. The other side was a small four-unit condo, empty for the winter. The caretakers had seen nothing and didn’t hesitate to suggest that Alison should have been keeping a better eye herself. Alison knew that. Suddenly she knew that. The fog she’d been in for the last few days, for months, had instantly dissipated. She knew what she should have been paying attention to, and she knew she had not been, and she knew now what the cost could be.
She had gone into the house and waited in the kitchen, walking back and forth between the window that looked toward the beach and the one that looked over the front yard. Then she went out, jumped into the car, and drove the half mile to Cannon Beach. She looked in all the stores and cafés, in the toy store, asking if anyone had seen a little girl. She drove home and went onto the beach a final time, running and calling and screaming her daughter’s name. Madison was a strong swimmer. Alison didn’t believe she’d have just walked into the sea and been carried away. It was something she probably could believe if she put her mind to it, but she wasn’t going to do that, not yet. By now the light had almost gone, and she knew that running and screaming were going to solve nothing.
So then the talking. The phone call to the police.
And then to Simon.
“You last saw her—”
“Simon, I told you this.”
“I know. But I’ve had no sleep, and I got here at three o’clock in the morning, and I’m really not—”
“About midday,” Alison said. It came out as a croak. “She’d been out on the beach. She came back in and said she was going to read awhile. She went into her room. I was sitting in the chair. I…I must have fallen asleep. When I woke up, I went to see if she wanted to go for a walk, but…”