Little Girls Lost Read online

  "You keep surprising me," Celeste murmured, her head against his chest.

  He stroked her wet hair. "That's a compliment, I hope?"

  "When I first saw you, I thought, if only I'd met him ten years ago. But now I'm just trying to keep up with you. Ten years ago you would have broken me in half."

  Sam chuckled. "Ten years ago I probably wouldn't have seen you. I was so focused on my career then, climbing the ladder. I would have looked at you, thought, wow, she's hot. And then I would have gone back to work."

  She looked up at him. "What changed?"

  He paused, wondering whether to tell her, wondering whether to let her in. After a few moments he found the answer that felt right. "Missy," he said.

  "Was that a girlfriend?"

  "My daughter."

  Celeste pulled away from him so she could see his face. "You have a daughter?" she asked, a trace of accusation in her voice.

  Sam sighed and began telling the story that he hated to tell, but that he knew he'd never be done telling. "Missy was ... Missy was my little girl, and she would have been eight years old in July."

  "Would have been?"

  "She died. She drowned at a friend's birthday party."

  Something in Celeste's face folded, and her eyes swam with tears. "Oh, Sam," she said, and came back to hold him. "You said that you and your wife were going through hard times, but I never imagined...."

  "It was such an ordinary kid's party," Sam continued over the ache in his chest. "Balloons. Lots of kids running around and screaming, playing. I was with some of the other fathers, talking about nothing. Just killing time until it was over. I don't know where Patty was, but she was probably with the mothers, doing the same thing I was doing. I remember I was holding onto Missy's dress. She had her swim suit on under the dress, and she gave it to me when she wanted to play in the pool. It was purple and white, with little flowers on it. Sometimes I have trouble remembering her face, but I remember that dress."

  He was silent for a while, wondering if it was enough, wondering if he could stop. He found he wanted to tell the story, though, and so in time he continued. "It's amazing the racket that a group of kids can make. When they're really having fun it's just a bunch of screaming, and then there was the splashing in the pool. I looked over there pretty regularly, checking out what was going on. It seemed like everyone was having fun, and I guess I figured that if something went wrong someone would start shouting and I'd know about it. Only the first thing I heard wasn't screaming, it was silence. It was a drop in the noise. It was the sound of a birthday party turning into something awful."

  He took a deep breath and willed himself not to cry. He didn't know why he shouldn't cry, exactly. He was talking about the worst thing that could ever happen to him, why shouldn't he cry? Didn't Missy deserve his tears? But Sam had been taught well by his father, and something about telling the truth to Celeste made it important that he not to reveal everything, not be that raw in front of her. And so he fought the tears back, he got his voice under control, and he finished his story.

  "There was a lot of shouting after that, of course, and there were sirens and paramedics and screaming. Patty was hysterical. She screamed at Missy to wake up and at me for not saving her and at God for taking a little girl who was only having fun with her friends. I don't think Patty has ever really stopped screaming. She's more quiet now, but I can still hear her screams."

  Celeste was holding him tight. Sam pulled her even tighter, as if he would pull her inside and fill the empty space in is chest. "So Missy was the one who woke me up from my obsession with my career. She loved me so intensely that I couldn't even imagine putting anything in front of her. And then, when she died, I went back to the work because I didn't have anything else."

  "And now?" Celeste asked, looking up at him with sad eyes.

  "Now I have something new, and it makes me feel amazing."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The high from his time with Celeste carried Sam all the way to his front door, and no further. He stood on the step and looked at the knob on his front door, not wanting to turn it, knowing that he had to.

  There were so many things that kept Sam on that front step: guilt over what he was doing to his marriage, depression at the thought of confronting his wife, and a small strand of desperate regret that he had shared the story of his daughter's death with his lover. That act, which had seemed so right and healing at the time, now felt like the biggest betrayal of them all.

  Sam closed his eyes and sighed. Time to be a man. His hand closed on the knob and he turned it.

  Patty was in the living room, clothed in shadow, illuminated only by the sickly light that drifted in between the half-closed curtains. She didn't look up when Sam came into the room. He stood in silence, allowing himself the hope that she had drifted off to sleep. He knew his hope was and empty one, though, which was confirmed when she spoke in a low voice.

  "Are you fucking her?"

  Sam sighed. "Who?" he asked, knowing the question was pointless.

  "Whoever. Do you think I care who she is? Do you think I keep track of your whores?"

  Almost Sam offered a defense: "But this is the first one. The only one." He knew it was pointless, though, and not only because he would be splitting hairs. He could smell the alcohol on Patty's breath. Its poisonous tendrils curled around him.

  "You should sleep now. We'll talk in the morning."

  In a rage, Patty lurched to her feet. "Don't you fucking shut me down! Don't you do it! I want answers, God damn it! I want to know where you were!"

  "Now you want to be my wife?!" Sam roared in response, anger burning away his sadness and his guilt. "For days, for weeks you're nowhere to be seen, and now you're wondering where I was?! Where have you been, Patty? Where have you been?"

  Where have you been since our daughter died, he almost added, but that became one more thing that they did not say to one another. Between the two of them, they had accumulated a long list of silences.

  "I'm out with my friends. I'm out with people who like me. Some of them are men, Sam. Do you think you're the only one who knows how to cheat?"

  Sam closed his eyes. He wasn't a fool. He knew what Patty had been up to, but he didn't want to hear the specifics. He didn't want names and places. The mere thought of it was enough to make his stomach twist.

  "Patty," he sighed, "let's not..."

  "No, Sam, let's do just that. Because I don't think you have any idea what sort of world you've been living in. Your partner, for instance. Did you think he was your friend? Did you really think that he has your back?"

  A tendril of icy cold slipped into Sam's chest as his mind chased after the implications of what his wife had said. "What do you mean by that?" he growled in a low voice.

  "I mean that I fucked him!" she spat at him. "And he was lousy in bed, but I fucked him again just to have a good laugh at your expense. The thought of the two of you together as partners, it's hilarious! You think you can count on Bud? You think you can trust him? You have no idea, but I do."

  There was a roaring in Sam's ears as every emotion he could name forced its way up through his chest and into his head. He wanted to shout at Patty, he wanted to make a fist and punch her angry, blotchy face, he wanted to pull his gun and fire it into the ceiling just to hear the noise. Instead he turned on his heel and stalked out of the house without a word.

  Just one more silence, he thought. Add it to the others. Add it to the pile that marked his marriage's grave.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Warren Sundquist found Tyrone exactly where he expected to find him: around the side of the house, a broom in his hands, standing with his shoulder hunched and a faraway look in his eyes.

  Sundquist stood quietly and watched him for a few moments, reading his thoughts from his posture and the slant of his head. Tyrone was the sort of man who made silence loud. Warren knew that his quiet exterior was a mask he wore to hide the desperate, raging, confused child who cow
ered inside.

  Finally he approached, moving quietly, and speaking up in a low voice calculated not to startle the man. "Are you done with the sweeping, Tyrone?"

  The man twitched, visibly pulled back into the present moment from whatever revery held him. He started sweeping again in hurried movements. "I will be soon, doctor. I'm sorry."

  "There's no need to be sorry, Tyrone. I'm not angry with you."

  "Yes, sir. I'm sorry, sir."

  Sundquist's mouth quirked. "Yes, I know you're sorry, Tyrone." He watched the man work for a few moments, then asked the question that had brought him out here. "Are you having trouble with the thoughts again, Tyrone?"

  Tyrone stopped sweeping and shot him a furtive glance. "Not as bad as it used to be. Not usually. At night sometimes, but I do what you taught me and it goes away."

  Sundquist nodded. "You apply the techniques we've worked on. The affirmations and the breathing techniques?"

  Tyrone nodded earnestly. "I do. I do all those things."

  "And they help?"

  "They help, Doctor. I was so much worse before. I don't know what ... I'm just so glad that you let me stay here."

  Sundquist smiled at him. "I like having you here, Tyrone. And not because I can keep an eye on you. I like having you here because I feel like we're partners. I know how important it is for you to feel strong and complete, Tyrone. I understand how hard it is for you to get past the things that happened to you when you were younger, and I'm proud of how far you've come. Do you believe me when I say that it's important to me, too, for you to be strong?"

  Tyrone nodded vigorously, though his eyes slipped from contact with the doctor's. Sundquist knew that Tyrone was experiencing a surge of emotion, and even after all their work together he still struggled with emotions and what to do with them. "I do believe that, Doctor. You've been very good to me."

  "I've tried to do the right thing. I know I wasn't the first therapist who tried to help you, but when the others looked at you all they could see was a broken thing. What you went through as a child was enough to break anyone, Tyrone, and I believe it very nearly finished you. But I saw something a little different: damaged, certainly, and as much a danger to yourself as you were to others. But I knew that it took great strength to survive what you went through, and I wondered what that strength might make you capable of, if someone gave you a chance."

  Tyrone looked at him silently, but his eyes were shining. Sundquist imagined that this must have been what Captain Cook experienced when he landed on Hawaii and the natives worshiped him as a god.

  That didn't work out so well for Captain Cook, but Warren had a plan. He stepped up to Tyrone and laid a gentle hand on his shoulder.

  "There are people in this world who lead charmed lives, Tyrone. They're born to loving parents who care for their needs. They go to school and get married and live their lives surrounded by friends and loved ones. And after they die they are quickly forgotten, because nothing really good comes out of something so easy."

  He turned Tyrone toward him and placed his other hand on Tyrone's other shoulder, so that he could look deeply into his eyes.

  "A great philosopher once said, 'What doesn't kill me makes me stronger.' You, Tyrone, have been nearly killed a number of times. Your father did unspeakable things to you. Your mother didn't love you enough to protect you. You dropped out of school and went into the military, where they shipped you out to countries where you could see and do things so horrible that I don't even have words for them. And then, when you came back to this country and brought some of that violence and pain back with you, they caught you and they threw you into a cage full of animals even more vicious than you. A lesser man, a weaker man, would have been broken by any one of those things, let alone all of them. But you, Tyrone, you're too strong for that."

  He held Tyrone's eyes and squeezed his shoulders.

  "Do you see that, Tyrone? Do you see how powerful you've become?"

  Tyrone nodded slowly. "I do see it. You've helped me see it, doctor. And now I feel like I can do anything."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Police detective was the sort of job that doesn't make you feel good very often. Sam could count on the fingers of one hand the times that he had felt proud that he had his job, that he carried his badge.

  Of course, he didn't join the force to feel good about himself, but some days were better than others, and the days when being a detective made him feel like shit were a good sight worse than the days that did not.

  Today, Sam felt like shit.

  He stood to the side of the ceremony, not wanting to give the impression that he felt like he belonged there, as if he could mourn in the same way or with the same intensity that the dead girl's relatives could mourn. On the other hand, he didn't want to stand so far away that he gave an impression of distaste. It was an impossible task, to find the appropriate place to stand at a funeral to which he had not been invited, and which—if he had been better at his job—maybe would not have been necessary in the first place.

  Sam stood with his hands in his pockets and welcomed the queasy feeling in his stomach. That was the feeling that reminded him that a monster was still out there. Sam was close now, he could feel it, but he wasn't close enough. The sea of black clothing that surrounded him reminded him of that. The ashen faces of Becky's parents were simply punctuation.

  Well, he was here to do a job. Sam shoved his feelings down and scanned the crowd. He wasn't looking for anything specific, just something or someone who seemed out of place. Sam knew that he wasn't lucky enough to find the killer standing right next to him at the funeral of a girl he had killed, but he was nothing if not thorough and so he scanned the crowd for a face he didn't expect to find there.

  You're out there, you bastard. You have another girl and she may be dead already, but I have your scent now. You son of a bitch, I have your scent, and I'm coming.

  Tyrone stood beneath the shade of a tree and rested his hands against the cool iron fence that ringed the cemetery. He could see the ceremony off in the distance, and in his heart he joined the mourners there.

  His eyes filled with tears at the thought of the pain they must be suffering.

  Tyrone knew pain. The therapists all wanted to talk about his childhood, as if the things that happened to him when he was little were so much worse than what happened later. Tyrone knew the truth, though. He knew that a child is strong because he can forget. Tyrone remembered in a detached sort of way what his parents had done to him. When he played through the memories it was kind of like watching television. He saw what happened, but he didn't feel it. Whatever he might have felt at the time, the pain and the fear, those things were gone now, and emptiness took their place.

  The more recent pains were the ones that kept Tyrone from sleeping at night. He remembered what had happened to his friends in Afghanistan. He wished he could forget, but he couldn't. Tyrone knew that he had done terrible things while on tour, and he knew that God would never let him forget those things. Memory was how he paid for his sins.

  And Tyrone could remember prison, after they found out what he'd done. He'd tried to explain, but they wouldn't listen, they were too angry at him. And so they put him into a place where the worst people in the world lived. Tyrone carried scars from that time, some on the outside and some on the inside. Eventually he got out, but he knew better than anyone that, when you escape from hell, you bring a little piece of it with you.

  He breathed a sigh of relief. At least Betsy was free now.

  Tyrone could hear the sounds of mourning, even though he was far away. He knew how sad they must be, because Betsy was a pretty girl and everyone loves the pretty ones. He wanted to shout out to them, though. He wanted to wave his arms and yell, "Rejoice! She's free! She's safe now, and she's with God! No one can hurt her ever again!"

  He remained silent. He would not be able to convince them, he knew that. It took Tyrone himself a long time before he understood what he now knew to be the t
ruth. The world is a cold and terrible place. It is full of pain and fear and regret. Now that Betsy's spirit was free of her body, she had transcended that and ascended into glory. It was a wonderful thing! Tyrone looked forward to the day when Betsy's parents would understand.

  It was a wonderful thing, the path he was on, and he was only getting started.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Sam's head was full of plans for the day ahead as he trudged back to his car, so it was some time before he noticed that someone was waiting for him.

  It was the sickly yellow that caught his eye first. Sam had never understood why Bud chose that color. It looked like mustard when it was clean. When it was dirty, it looked like something crusty and unwell. He'd given his partner plenty of grief over it. "You know what's a good color for a car? Red. Black. Blue, sometimes. Not puke-mustard-yellow." And Bud would squint his eyes and drive on without a word.

  Now his partner was leaning up against his ugly car and waiting for Sam with his arms crossed across his chest. Sam felt the blood drain out of his face. He almost turned around and walked back the way he came. Instead he took a deep breath and continued forward.

  Bud opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it at the look in Sam's eyes. He cursed under his breath. "She told you."

  It was by a bare margin that Sam restrained himself from punching Bud in the mouth. "She told me," he said instead.

  Bud looked away. "Well, fuck."

  "Yeah," Sam said. "Fuck."

  Bud looked at him warily. "I'll bet you pretty much hate me now."

  "What else am I going to feel, Bud?"

  He nodded, looking down at his feet. "You should feel exactly that thing. Because I did it, and as much as you hate me, I hate myself even more."