Making Her Way Home

Ms. Greenway stood aside and let him go in. He was worried more than relieved to see signs of a young girl’s occupancy. He’d have been pissed if this whole thing was a hoax and Sicily Marks didn’t exist at all, but at least he wouldn’t have had to worry about her being dead in a shallow grave, either.

He wondered what this room had been used for before Sicily came to stay. Maybe nothing. The walls were white. The only furniture was a twin bed and a dresser. No curtains to soften the white blinds. No artwork. Only one throw rug, right beside the bed, and it was one of those hooked ones that might have been moved from elsewhere in the house. One of the sliding closet doors stood open, letting him see a few pairs of kid-size shoes in a neat row and exactly one dress hanging on a hanger beside a pink denim jacket. He crossed the room and opened each drawer on the dresser in turn. The contents were startlingly skimpy.

“She didn’t come with much.” The words were soft. Ashamed? “Mostly she’d outgrown what she did have.”

Sicily Marks still didn’t have much, he couldn’t help thinking.

“I didn’t use this room.” Ms. Greenway still hovered in the doorway. She was looking around. “We’re going to paint or wallpaper or something, but she hasn’t decided yet….” She didn’t finish.

That was believable, he supposed. “She into pink and purple? All that girly stuff?”

“I’m…not sure.” At least she hadn’t said “I don’t know.” “She seems to like red. But she did pick out a pink jacket. And some pink flats.”

Flats? His gaze fell to the shoes and he saw a pair of pink leather slip-ons.

“I think—” and she sounded sad “—Sicily hasn’t ever been able to buy new or really pick out what she liked. The whole idea that she can is taking her some getting used to. I wanted to buy her a whole new wardrobe in one outing, but she had to think so long about every single thing we bought, we haven’t gotten that far.”

She was talking about her niece in the present tense, which was good. People sometimes slipped up that way, when they were talking about someone they knew was dead.

Yeah, but he’d already concluded Beth Greenway could be one hell of a liar.

“Does she have a school bag?” he asked. “A binder where she might have written down her thoughts? Or does she keep a diary?”

“A diary?” She sounded slightly uncertain. “Not as far as I know. I’m sure she didn’t bring anything like that. Everything she owned was in one small suitcase that had lost a wheel. Her book bag is probably in my office. She usually does her homework there or at the dining-room table. We’re going to get her a desk for in here eventually….” Again her voice trailed off. She backed into the hall and turned toward the office.

Sicily was in fifth grade, she told him. Flipping through the girl’s binder, he learned that she was organized, had careful handwriting with generous loops but no flourishes, and was getting top-notch grades. Excellent! the teacher had scrawled on returned assignments. 99%. 100%. Fine work.

Behind him, Ms. Greenway said, “She’s been in eight schools so far. Rachel kept moving. Mostly around here, but she went to L.A. for a little while, then San Francisco. Somehow Sicily managed to do well in school everywhere she went.”

He caught the note of sadness in her voice. Something else, too. Guilt? Or was it grief, because she knew damn well Sicily wasn’t going to have a chance to do well in school ever again?

What he didn’t find was anything personal. No diary, no notes that might have been passed to or from another girl. Nothing helpful.

“Does she have friends?” he asked.

“I…” Ms. Greenway stopped and he saw that she’d closed her eyes. “I don’t think so. She says she has other kids to sit with for lunch, and another girl asked her to partner in badminton during gym class, but as far as I know no one has invited her over to play or anything like that.”

“You said she didn’t know how to play.”

“No.” Brown eyes that were both bleak and dazed met his. “She’s determined to help me. She wants to clean house and cook dinner. I feel like…like…”

“She’s trying to make you want to keep her?”

“Maybe.” She heaved a sigh. “Mostly, I think that’s what she’s used to doing. Taking care of her mom.”

He nodded. Mike had seen plenty of that kind of role reversal in families with a parent who was mentally ill, a drug addict or a drunk. Their kids grew up too fast. They learned quick that if there was going to be food on the table, they had to put it there. They also learned excellent cover-up skills; most kids were afraid of losing whatever family they did have. It was up to them to make sure school counselors, neighbors and social workers didn’t notice how dysfunctional their home situation really was.

He wondered what Sicily Marks had made of this house.

“All right,” he said abruptly. “I’ll need your parents’ phone number.”

She looked almost numb. With a nod, she turned and walked away down the hall. Turned out she had to get her smart phone, which she’d had on the table right beside her as she ate, so she could look up her own parents’ phone number.

He remembered already having jotted down their names. Laurence and Rowena Greenway. After adding the phone number, he remarked, “Your father’s name is familiar.”

“He’s in the financial news regularly,” she said with an astonishing lack of expression. “He was a big contributor to Governor Conley’s campaign.”

“Your parents have money, and your sister and her kid lived without?”

“I doubt they ever offered help, or that she would have taken it if they had.”

“Did they help you get started in your business?”

“No.” Flat. Final.

“Put you through college?”

She hesitated. “They did do that.” Then her eyes met his. “My relationship with them is hardly the point, is it?”

“Not if this turns out to be a stranger abduction.” Her flinch made him feel brutal. “More kids are snatched by members of their own families than by strangers, Ms. Greenway. I need to keep that in mind.”

Her lashes fluttered a couple of times. “I see,” she said, ducking her head.

He needed to talk to Sicily’s grandparents, start a search for her father. Find out more about her mother’s death. Part of him wanted nothing so much as to get away from this woman. But seeing how utterly alone she looked, he frowned.

“Is there someone you can call to be with you tonight?”

Her chin lifted. “That’s not necessary.”

“You shouldn’t be alone.”

“I’m always…” She stopped. He couldn’t help noticing that her hands were fisted so tight her knuckles showed white. “I’m comfortable by myself, Detective. Please don’t concern yourself.”

He’d been dismissed. Mike gave a brusque nod, said, “I’ll call in the morning, Ms. Greenway,” and left.

CHAPTER THREE

SICILY GROANED. OH, HER HEAD hurt so bad. Instinctively, she lifted a hand up, but her elbow banged something and she cried out.

Once the pain subsided a little, she tried to think. It was dark so she must be in bed. First she thought she was at home—well, at the apartment Mom had rented in the Rainier Valley, which was kind of a pit and they hadn’t been here that long… Except then she remembered Mom was dead. Images flickered through her mind: the police coming to the door, the tense hour waiting for the aunt she didn’t know to come for her. The funeral and the night she spent on Aunt Beth’s couch before the twin bed was delivered the next day. A new bed! Only it didn’t even have a headboard, so what had she banged her elbow on?

Something hard pressed into her hip, too. And her shoulder, and even her thigh. Sharp edges and weird bumps.

She heard herself panting. She was suddenly scared. Really scared. Her instinct was to huddle and be really, really quiet, except she’d already made sounds. Still, she tried to stifle her breathing and listened hard. After a minute she realized she was hearing traffic. Not like the freeway, these were city streets. And someone a long ways away yelled, and then another voice answered. There was a siren even farther away. It sounded…like what she’d have heard from practically any apartment she and Mom had lived in. Regular city sounds. Aunt Beth’s was different. Especially late at night, it was quiet. Once in a while she’d hear a car, some neighbor coming home, but hardly ever sirens or loud voices or stuff like that.

Finally, timidly, she stretched out her hand and felt around her. If only it weren’t so dark. First she found a wadded something that was soft, like clothes, but when she brought it to her nose it stunk like gas or oil. There was a crumpled bag that smelled like French fries. All the surfaces were hard and angular except for…whatever was under her hip. She felt her way along it, remembering the story a teacher had told about the three blind men groping an elephant. Beth got the point, but she’d been able to tell that most of her classmates didn’t.

A tire. She was lying on a car tire. Why was there a tire under her?