Perfect Nightmare

move into Claire’s house until she felt capable of taking care of herself.

“We’ll pick up some of Kara’s things and be back in less than an hour,” she heard Patrick tell Claire. He put a folder of papers in the backseat, got in, slowly pulled around the circular drive, and headed for Kara’s house. “I made all the arrangements at Summers Funeral Home,” he said as Claire’s house disappeared from sight. “I chose a mid-range urn — perfectly nice, but not too expensive — and we can schedule Steve’s funeral whenever you feel up to it.” He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “Which right now, I suspect, feels like exactly never, correct?”

Kara took a deep breath, let it out, and nodded. Patrick, once again, knew exactly how she was feeling. “And certainly not until Lindsay comes home,” she said. A sob caught in her throat: just hearing the words “funeral home” and “urn” made her eyes burn with tears. But how was it even possible? It seemed all she’d done in the last week was cry. Shouldn’t she be out of tears by now? She felt completely dehydrated, and her eyes were swollen and sore, but still she could see her vision blurring as more tears welled up from somewhere. “I’ll give you a check when we get home,” she said, determined not to give in to yet another bout of sobbing.

“No rush,” Patrick said. “But there are a lot of other things you’re going to have to start thinking about. Steve’s will, his life insurance—”

“Steve’s office is full of lawyers,” Kara broke in. “They can do it.”

Patrick remained silent the rest of the way back to her house while Kara stared, unseeing — barely even thinking — out the window.

When they pulled up in front of the house, it looked exactly the same as it had a week ago, when Patrick and Claire had led her out of it. But how could it look the same? How could anything about it ever look the same again, when everything about the world it contained had changed?

But of course that was it — it was only her world that had changed. The rest of the world had barely even noticed what had happened to her.

And it all seemed inconceivable.

Patrick set the brake and shut off the engine, grabbed the folder from the backseat, then came around to her door and opened it. Taking her hand, he helped her out of the car, and she stood unsteadily for a moment, wondering if she was going to fall. Then, in the instant before her knees gave way, she steadied herself and started toward the front door.

Patrick took her elbow, then her keys, and opened the door. Steering her inside, he led her to the sofa.

The sofa she had neither seen nor sat on since the night she’d perched on its edge while she heard the news that her husband was dead. Now she lowered herself onto it gingerly, as if somehow it might be preparing to inflict yet another blow on her battered spirit. Then she sat staring straight ahead.

“I’m going to make tea,” Patrick said, moving a box of tissues to within her reach.

Kara managed a nod, and as Patrick began rummaging in the kitchen, her eyes were drawn to the dark green folder he’d left on the coffee table.

Left where she couldn’t help but see it.

For almost a full minute she gazed at the gold letters that were embossed on the front of the blue folder: SUMMERS FUNERAL HOME.

An odd name for a funeral home. Wouldn’t “Winters” have been more appropriate? And how had she chosen it? She couldn’t remember, just as she couldn’t remember much of the last week.

Maybe she hadn’t chosen it at all; maybe it had been Patrick, or perhaps Claire.

Patrick and Claire.

Two weeks ago Claire had been nothing more than an acquaintance, really, and Patrick even less than that: a person she’d been aware of mostly because of what had happened to him, rather than as Claire’s brother. But Claire had opened her home to her without a thought, and Patrick had tended to her as if he were her brother rather than Claire's. Without them, Kara wasn’t sure she could have gotten through this week at all.

Except for Lindsay.

That was what had kept her going. Clinging to the hope — no, the knowledge—that Lindsay was still alive, and needed her. And when she finally came home and found out what had happened to her father—

Kara flinched at the thought, then put it out of her mind. They would get through it. Together, she and Lindsay would find a way to rebuild their lives.

When she found Lindsay.

And how was she going to find Lindsay if she kept sitting numbly letting Patrick and Claire take care of her?

“Here we go,” Patrick said, setting a steaming cup of chamomile on a coaster in front of her. He lowered himself next to her on the sofa and blew on his own cup, but Kara was barely aware of his presence, her eyes fixed now on Steve’s favorite wing chair.

The chair he would never sit in again.

How was it possible?

Yet, inconceivable as it seemed, it was true.

And suddenly, as the full reality of it all finally sank in right here in her own house — a house that was so full of Steve and so full of Lindsay that she could actually feel their energy — she began to regain some of her own. Sitting up, Kara reached for the cup, sipped the tea that was sweetened with exactly the right amount of honey, and felt her mind begin to shift from neutral back into gear. “I hardly know where to start,” she murmured, almost unaware she was speaking out loud. “There’s so much to do.”

“Let other people handle it for a while,” Patrick said softly.

Kara turned to look at him. “I can’t. I have to start handling things myself.” Patrick was about to say something, but Kara shook her head. “Thank you for everything you’ve done, Patrick, you and Claire both. I can’t begin to tell you what it’s meant to me.”

He took her hand and squeezed it. “Helping you helps me,” he said.

Now Kara nodded, understanding, and knowing what she had to do. “I’m not going to go back to Claire’s tonight,” she said. “It’s time I got back to work. Lindsay needs me.”

“Maybe in a couple of days,” Patrick countered. “But not tonight. It’s too soon. Let’s just pack a few things and head back to Claire's, where you can rest.”

Kara felt her energy surge and her resolve strengthen. “No,” she said. “It’s time for me to get on with it. If I don’t get back to work on finding Lindsay, nobody else will. I know the police think she just ran away, but I know that’s not what happened. She’s out there, Patrick, and she’s depending on me, and I have to find her. I have to!” She looked up at him, expecting to see doubt in his eyes, and braced herself for an argument. But instead he nodded.

“If that’s the way you want it, then I’m with you.”

“You don’t have to,” Kara said softly. “You’ve done far more already than anyone could have expected.”

“But we won’t be done until we find Lindsay.”

As they gazed at each other, Kara’s mind was already at work.

Ellen stared numbly at the badges pinned to the two policemen’s shirts. O'Reilly and Murphy, like some dumb B-movie they wouldn’t even show on TV anymore. Irish cops, smiling at her and telling her they were sure everything was all right. But everything wasn’t all right — the picture of Emily was gone from her house, and so was the knife she’d left on the kitchen counter when she’d gone up to find Emily. And now Emily was sitting on the floor in the Sanchezes’ house two doors up, watching TV under the vigilant eye of Angela Sanchez, and she was standing in front of her own house with Ramon Sanchez and two cops named O'Reilly and Murphy.

“You didn’t actually hear anything?” O'Reilly said as they approached the front door.

“I didn’t have to hear anything,” she said for what seemed like the hundredth time. “The knife was there when I went upstairs and gone when I came back down.” She fixed the officer with a cold stare. “Which means someone took it, which means someone was in my house.”

“All right,” O'Reilly said in a tone that clearly told Ellen he wasn’t buying her story. “You and Mr. Sanchez stay here, and Murphy and I will have a look around.” Then he spoke quietly into the microphone attached to his shoulder. “We’re going in.”

The door was not locked — indeed, Ellen was surprised it was even closed, given the way she and Emily had fled only half an hour earlier. As she and Ramon waited on the front lawn, O'Reilly and Murphy took positions