Then she noticed something out of place. A small rock lying up against the bottom of her closet.
Somebody must have thrown it at her window from below. It had broken, and the rock came flying in. Somebody? How may candidates were there?
Rachel went to the window. Carefully got up against the wall and angled herself so that she couldn’t be seen. Then very slowly moved her head so she could glimpse the yard below—ready to jump back out of sight fast.
There was no one down there, but Rachel decided that this had gone far enough. She was finally going to call the cops. She walked quickly back out of the bedroom and clattered down the stairs.
The girl was standing at the other end of the corridor, silhouetted against the light in the kitchen.
Rachel could see immediately what she’d done. Sent her upstairs with the noise, then quietly broken a pane in the back door, put her hand in, and unlocked it. But was that something a little girl would be able to plan? What kind of child was she dealing with here?
“Get out,” Rachel said.
Her voice was dry and not loud enough.
The girl was holding something. Rachel recognized it. A professional-standard ten-inch chef’s knife, from when she’d decided she ought to learn how to cook French. She’d bought an armful of books and a food processor and gotten as far as badly fucking up a confit of duck before abandoning the idea. The knife hadn’t gotten much use since it left the store, bottom line. It was still very sharp, and out of scale with the person currently holding it. A child that age should look silly with such a thing in her hand. Unfortunately, she did not.
Rachel turned and ran to the front door. Grabbed the catch and pulled it. It didn’t move.
She’d locked it when she got back in.
The girl was now in the living room. “You’re going to help me,” she said.
“Listen, honey,” Rachel said shakily, hands on hips, “we are so done here. I don’t know what your problem is, but I’m calling the cops. I mean it.”
The girl moved the knife until the point of it was right against her own throat. “No you won’t,” she said.
“You’re wrong. Get out of my house.”
“Don’t make me do this,” the girl said, and now the point of the knife was making an indentation in the skin of her neck.
“What are you—”
“Do you want the police to find things this way?”
“Look…”
Suddenly the girl’s eyes were wet. Rachel watched as she pushed her hand upward a little more, and a dark drop welled up around the point of the knife jabbing into her throat. Saw the girl’s hand tighten as she prepared to shove the blade up. Knew that she wasn’t going to stop.
“Please,” the girl said, her voice quiet and very afraid and not the way it had sounded moments before. “Help me. I’m not doing this.”
“Jesus,” Rachel said quickly, holding her hands out. “Okay. You win. Just don’t…do that.”
The girl took a step forward. This brought her into the light, and for a second she looked less crazy, as if the blade had gotten into her hand by accident, Mommy not paying attention while they cooked together, and it would be put down with ostentatious care at any second.
“Promise?”
“You bet,” Rachel said. “I promise.”
The girl slowly moved the knife away. She smiled tentatively. It was a nice smile, and Rachel allowed herself to relax just a little bit. A child who had that inside her could not be all bad. Hopefully.
“Okay,” she said, in the same calm and friendly voice. “So we’re cool. Why don’t you tell me your name?”
The girl’s face changed. “Why do you want to know?”
“Well, how else am I going to know what to call you, honey? I’m Rachel. See? No big deal.”
The girl was holding the knife loosely now, as if she’d forgotten about it.
“My name is Madison,” she said. “Mainly.”
“Great.” Rachel smiled. “That’s a real pretty name. Madison and Rachel. Friends, right?”
The girl was silent for a moment, motionless. Then she blinked. “I already knew your name,” she said.
She smiled again, but something had changed. It was as if everything about the girl—her face, body, clothing—were irrelevant. Only her eyes told the truth. Rachel’s stomach turned. She tried to look away but could not.
“Time,” the girl said, looking Rachel over, “is not kind. You were perfect, so much my kind of thing. I even found myself prey to a little crush, would you believe it? Oh, well. That was then, and this is now. Understand something, not-so-little Rachel. You’re too old, and we’re not friends, and even if we were, it wouldn’t stop me from cutting you up. So it would be a very good idea for you to do what you’re told.”
Rachel nodded. She didn’t know what else to do.
“Good,” the girl said. “We’re going to make a phone call now. You should find it interesting. Instructive, at least.”
The girl was holding the knife more tightly again now. This realization distracted Rachel, and she did not notice the girl’s other hand swinging toward her head until it was too late.
“Excellent,” Madison said brightly, when Rachel lay unconscious on the floor. “Now let’s find out just how much the great Todd Crane loves his daughter.”
chapter
THIRTY-THREE
I have been here before. Many times has this scene replayed in my head, but never has it been so much like it was when it was real.
I am in Los Angeles. I am sitting in a cramped armchair, in the dark, surrounded by the smell of other people’s debris. I am waiting for two men whose identities I have determined through the closest thing I will ever do to detective work. Men who have been places that were not theirs to enter, and in which they stole, committed at least two rapes and a murder. I have come to believe that being human is most of all to be a social animal and that if you do not understand that you are not allowed into other people’s places without their permission, then while you may be a Homo sapiens, you are not a human being.
I am aware I am committing the same crime as they, and as the men who killed my father, many years ago and hundreds of miles away. I am not allowed to be in this house. Even if I had a warrant, I should not be here. I should be at home with Amy, who is close to broken and needs me with her. Instead I am here. I cannot help Amy’s grief, or my own, and have run out of ways to try. So I sit in the rambling ruin of a house at the back end of a canyon, where all the windows are shut and there is no air. What do I really think I’m doing here? Am I waiting to arrest two people whose identities I have established or instead for two unknown men from long ago, whose names I can never know and whom I can never catch?
I am not thinking about this. I am not thinking about anything. Thinking means remembering the face of the prenatal technician as she stared at the images on the ultrasound for a beat too long, before quietly summoning a supervisor. It involves the sight of my wife moving slowly around our house, waiting in vain for the thing inside her to go away. It culminates in a spray of fine dust, thrown back in my face by the wind at the end of Santa Monica Pier, just two days before this night, as if all creation wanted to make sure I understood that this event was something that would never, ever go away. The material that came out and was cremated and dispersed was not him. Our son never made it to the outside world. He got stuck inside, still wanders those interior halls, affecting the world only through his shadowy presence in our minds. Those who share their lives with someone dead know that there is nothing as loud as the recounting of all the things that now can never be said, or the memories of events that will never take place.