There was no way Daniel planned to sit inside his house and wait for the police to find Trixie and bully an explanation out of her. To that end, the minute Bartholemew had gone - and Daniel checked to make sure he wasn't just lurking at the end of the block - Daniel had begun to consider what he knew about Trixie that the cops didn't. Where she might go, whom she might trust. Right now, there were precious few people who fell into that category.
The customer left the store, and Zephyr noticed him waiting outside. “Hey, Mr. S,” she said, waving.
She wore purple nail polish on her fingers. It was the same color Trixie had been wearing this morning; Daniel realized that they must have put it on together the last time Zephyr was over at the house. Just seeing it on Zephyr, when he so badly wanted to see it on Trixie, made it hard to breathe.
Zephyr was looking over his shoulder. “Is Trixie with you?” Daniel tried to shake his head, but somewhere between the thought and the action the intent vanished. He stared at the girl who knew his daughter maybe better than he'd ever known her himself, as much as it hurt to admit it. “Zephyr,” he said, “have you got a minute?”
* * *
For an old guy, Daniel Stone was hot. Zephyr had even said that to Trixie once or twice, although it totally freaked her out, what with him being her father and everything. But beyond that, Mr. Stone had always fascinated Zephyr. In all the years she'd known Trixie, she had never seen him lose his temper. Not when they spilled nail polish
remover on Mrs. S's bedroom bureau, not when Trixie failed her math test, not even when they were caught sneaking cigarettes in Trixie's garage. It was against human nature to be that calm, like he was some kind of Stepford dad who couldn't be provoked. Take Zephyr's own mother, for example. Zephyr had once found her hurling all of their dinner plates against the backyard fence, when she found out that this loser she was dating was two- timing her. Zephyr and her mom had screaming matches. In fact, her mother had been the one to teach her the best curse words. On the other hand, Trixie had learned them from Zephyr. Zephyr had even tried to lure Trixie into objectionable behaviors simply for the purpose of trying to get a rise out of Mr. Stone, but nothing had ever worked. He was like some kind of soap opera actor whose tragic story line you fell madly for: beautiful to look at, but all the same, you knew what you were seeing wasn't all it was cracked up to be.
Today, though, something was different. Mr. Stone couldn't concentrate; even as he grilled Zephyr, his eyes kept darting around. He was so far from the even-keeled, friendly father figure she'd envied her whole life that if Zephyr didn't know better, she would have assumed it wasn't Daniel Stone standing across from her at all.
“The last time I talked to Trixie was last night,” Zephyr said, leaning across the glass counter of the toy store. “I called her around ten o'clock to talk about the funeral.”
“Did she tell you that she had somewhere to go after that?”
“Trixie isn't really into going out these days.” As if her father didn't already know that.
“It's really important, Zephyr, that you tell me the truth.”
“Mr. Stone,” she said, “why would I lie to you?” An unspoken answer hovered between them: because you have before. They were both thinking about what she'd told the police after the night of the rape. They both knew that jealousy could rise like a tide, erasing events that had been scratched into the shore of
your memory.
Mr. Stone took a deep breath. “If she calls you . . . will you tell her I'm trying to find her . . . and that everything's going to be okay?”
“Is she in trouble?” Zephyr asked, but by then Trixie's father was already walking out of the toy store.
Zephyr watched him go. She didn't care that he thought she was a lousy friend. In fact, she was just the opposite. It was because she'd already wronged Trixie once that she'd done what she had. Zephyr punched the key on the cash register that made the drawer open. Three hours had passed since she'd stolen all the twenty-dollar bills and had given them to Trixie. Three hours, Zephyr thought, was a damn good head start.
* * *
HAVE GONE TO LOOK FOR TRIXIE, the note said. BRB.
Laura wandered up to Trixie's room, as if this was bound to be a big mistake, as if she might open the door and find Trixie there, silently nodding to the beat of her iPod as she wrestled with an algebraic equation. But she wasn't there, of course, and the small space had been overturned. She wondered if that had been Trixie or the police.
Daniel had said on the phone that this was suddenly a homicide investigation. That Jason's death had not been accidental after all. And that Trixie had run away.
There was so much that had to be fixed that Laura didn't know where to start. Her hands shook as she sorted through the leftovers of her daughter's life - an archaeologist, looking over the artifacts and trying to piece together an understanding of the young woman who'd used them. The Koosh ball and the Lisa Frank pencil - these belonged to the Trixie she thought she had known. It was the other items that she couldn't make sense of: the CD with
lyrics that made Laura's jaw drop, the sterling silver ring shaped like a skull, the condom hidden inside a makeup compact. Maybe she and Trixie still had a lot in common: Apparently, while Laura
was turning into a woman she could barely recognize, her daughter had been, too.
She sat down on Trixie's bed and lifted the receiver of the phone. How many times had Laura cut in on the line between her and Jason, telling her that she had to say good night and go to bed?
Five more minutes, Trixie would beg.
If she'd given Trixie those minutes, all those nights, would it have added up to another day for Jason? If she took five minutes now, could she right everything that had gone wrong?
It took Laura three tries to dial the number of the police station, and she was holding for Detective Bartholemew when Daniel stepped into the room. “What are you doing?”
“Calling the police,” she said.
He crossed in two strides and took the receiver from her hand, hung up the phone. “Don't.”
