Eighteen
A storm came up suddenly in the small hours of Tuesday morning, and Claire lay awake for a long time, listening to the rumble of thunder and the occasional car splashing by on the road in front of her house. As the lightning intensified, she got up to glance out the window, and for a moment she thought she saw someone standing across the street in the rain. But the harder she stared, the more convinced she became that what she saw was only a shadow.
She watched the rain for a while, then went back to bed, but when she finally fell asleep, her rest was fitful. She kept waking up abruptly, certain that she’d heard something in the house, only to realize that it was a branch scraping against the side of the house or rain dripping from the eaves.
She even got back up to check all the doors and windows downstairs, but she saw and heard nothing out of the ordinary. Ever since she’d discovered Ruby’s picture missing, Claire worried that someone had come into her house that night. Someone had deliberately removed the photograph from the table in the sunroom, but why? Who would still want a picture of her missing daughter after all this time?
The only answer she could come up with was almost too chilling to contemplate. Ruby’s kidnapper had never been caught. What if he had come back, after seven years, for some twisted reason that only he could comprehend?
She went back to bed yet again and watched the shifting patterns on the ceiling as the storm finally broke, just before dawn. The clouds moved inland and the light outside her window turned a misty violet. Claire rolled to her side and watched the sun come up. Only then did she close her eyes and sleep peacefully, until the alarm awakened her a few hours later.
By the time she headed into the Quarter, the sun was bright and the sky overhead a clear blue dome. The humidity was high after the rainstorm, and the stifling heat was like being wrapped in a wool blanket. The sidewalk artists along Pirates Alley had already opened their striped umbrellas, and the ones who were not busy sketching waved fans back and forth in front of their glistening faces.
No matter the weather, Claire loved coming to the Quarter. She’d grown up a few blocks away, in a little shotgun-style cottage in Faubourg Marigny, and the old Creole buildings with their worn facades and overhanging balconies were as familiar to her as her own backyard. Alex used to warn her about the dopers and street thugs that hung out in the area. He always said the place was a felony waiting to happen.
Claire supposed he was right. The Quarter had its share of problems, but there were other areas of the city that had much higher crime rates, and, in truth, the underlying danger had always been a part of the Quarter’s appeal.
She didn’t linger today, though, to enjoy the party-like atmosphere in the square. She wanted to be at the collectibles shop by the time the door opened at ten.
The neighboring shopkeeper had told Alex on Friday that Mignon Bujold would be back from her trip today, and Claire assumed that meant she would open at her regular time. Since Claire wasn’t due at the gallery until one, she didn’t have to rush. She could do a little window-shopping just to give the owner plenty of time to arrive at the store and open up.
But the longer Claire delayed, the more apprehensive she became. Now that a few days had gone by since she’d first seen the doll, she’d begun to second-guess herself, and had started to wonder if Charlotte might be right. The mere fact that the doll had curly blond hair and a pink ruffled dress could have been more than enough for Claire’s imagination to supply the rest of her daughter’s features. After all, she’d done it before. She’d been convinced dozens of times over the past seven years that she’d spotted Ruby on a playground or dashing through a crowded mall. What if this time was no different than the others?
But it
By the time she arrived at the shop, it was after ten, and to her disappointment, the Closed sign remained in the window, the shade was drawn and the door still locked tight.
She pressed her face to the glass and tried to peer around the edge of the shade. But this time, she detected no movement at all inside the shop, nor did she have the impression that anyone was about. To the contrary, the interior looked dark and deserted, and she drew back in frustration.
Claire had looked up the number for the shop in the directory a few days ago in order to leave a message, and now, as she stood in the doorway, she pulled out her cell phone and placed a call. She could hear the phone through the glass, and after several rings, an answering machine picked up. Once again she left her name and number, and asked that someone get in touch with her as soon as possible. Then she hung up and stood watching the midmorning traffic on the street.
The only thing she could do now was check the rear entrance. If the back door was locked, she would at least know that someone had been there since she and Alex left on Friday. If it was still open, then in all likelihood the owner hadn’t yet returned from her trip.
The alley was shady and a few degrees cooler than the street, but the courtyard at the back blazed with sunlight. The pavers beneath Claire’s feet were still damp and slippery from the night’s rain. As she walked down the alley, the street noises faded and the only sounds she noticed were the distant trickle of a fountain and the steady click of her heels against the worn bricks.
The closer she got to the back door, the more nervous she became. She’d never laid eyes on Mignon Bujold, knew nothing about the woman’s habits. There was no reason in the world that she should be concerned about a stranger, but Claire had a bad feeling that something was wrong.
She reminded herself that Alex had gone through the shop on Friday morning and found nothing. The register hadn’t been tampered with, nor had there been any sign of a break-in or struggle, nothing to indicate that the owner had left the shop by any means other than of her own volition.
The shopkeeper next door hadn’t even been alarmed by the unsecured premises, and there was no reason for Claire to be, either. But when the knob turned in her hand, her pulse quickened.
She glanced down the alley to the sunny street. A group of tourists strolled along in the lazy heat, but no one glanced in her direction. The gate to the courtyard was closed and nothing stirred from behind the iron fence except a mockingbird flitting through the branches of a mimosa tree. Claire was all alone in the alley.
Nothing to be afraid of, she told herself. Nothing at all.
But her palms were suddenly clammy and her heart started to pound in trepidation. As she pushed open the door, the chilly gloom seeped out into the alley. Claire stood shivering on the threshold, still hesitant to enter as her gaze darted about the dim space.
Everything inside was just as she remembered it. Shelves stuffed with boxes and packing materials. The worktable strewn with doll parts. The kitchenette. The beaded curtain that swayed in the breeze from the vents.
It was still cold inside the building, and she wondered if the air conditioner had been running all weekend.
She took a step inside, then paused again as her hand went to her nose. She hadn’t noticed a smell when she was there before, but now something unpleasant permeated the frigid air. She only caught a whiff of it now and then, and she wondered if it might be food that had been left in the trash can for days.
When she walked through the beaded curtain into the shop, the scent faded and she was able to ignore it. She’d looked through all the display cabinets on Friday, but today, without Alex to interrupt her, she conducted a more thorough search. As she knelt to examine the shelves beneath the counter, the phone beside the register rang. The jarring sound startled her so badly, she almost toppled over, and had to grab the edge of the counter to catch herself. But the structure wasn’t stable, and when it shifted, she lost her balance and crashed to the floor.
