Long Gone

He had stayed in Dover for a reason. After college, he could have moved down to the city. The economy was on fire back then. He could have gotten a job in the computer industry, or maybe even in finance. But he wanted to live in Dover. And even in good times, Dover didn’t have cutting-edge jobs. There were teachers, doctors, lawyers, the service industry, and government. He went with the police department.

He had no regrets, but sometimes he wondered whether Dover was still the place he had resolved never to leave. In the Dover of his memories, two or three of the neighborhood men would have quietly taken turns attending to the clogged gutters of a distracted single mother struggling to work full-time and raise a daughter. The idea that these gutters would be growing trees while Becca Stevenson was missing? Well, that wasn’t the way Morhart thought of the people in this community.

He was about to knock on the screen door when he caught a glimpse of her through the living room window. Joann Stevenson’s face was somehow young and old at the same time. Ageless, he supposed. Her forehead was unlined, but her cheeks were beginning to sag, and creases had formed around her mouth like parentheses. Her face was broad, her eyes wide-set. She was an attractive woman, but not what someone might call pretty. There was a stillness to her expression-to her entire body-that made him think she had lived a longer, fuller life than other women her age. There was a depth to her that resonated in her very energy.

He rapped his knuckles on the screen and felt guilty when she jumped, the cell phone in her hand tumbling to the coffee table. She looked terrified when she answered the door, the way she did each time he’d come here since their first meeting. She didn’t need to explain the expression on her face. She was a woman wondering if this was the day: Was this the cold, damp afternoon when a police officer would knock on her door and tell her that her daughter’s body had been located?

He raised his eyebrows just enough to signal that today was not the day.

She handled the update as he knew she would. He had not seen her shed another tear since she’d learned about Becca’s secret relationship with her biological father. He knew she wanted to cry. He could almost feel the emotion running through her body. He believed it was the reason why she sat with her knees pushed together and her elbows tucked into her waist, as if she could literally trap her feelings inside to maintain composure in front of a man who was still in every meaningful sense a stranger.

She nodded periodically, her lips pressed tightly, as he told her the news. The police in the city had made progress, but all of it was on their side of the investigation. He believed they might be announcing a murder suspect. They might even make an arrest. But so far they had been unable to determine why Becca’s fingerprints had been in that gallery.

“If they arrest someone for killing that man, could that help us find Becca?”

“That’s what I’m hoping, Joann.” According to his agreement with the NYPD, he could not disclose the details of the investigation, but he found himself wanting to tell Joann everything. “We’ve got to keep our fingers crossed that the arrest will put pressure on that person to open up to us about Becca. I’m really hoping that’s how it plays out.”

She nodded again.

“No one else seems to care she’s gone anymore.” There was no melodrama to her voice. It was almost as if she were talking to herself. Or maybe to little Sebastian, nuzzling his tiny dog face against the sofa cushions. “Everyone’s moving on.”

He found himself placing a hand in the middle of her back, then the other hand reaching for her knee. Just the outer edge. Nothing inappropriate, he would tell himself later.

“I’m not, Joann. I’m not going anywhere.”

He expected her to break down, but she only nodded, her lips pressed together once again.

Thirty-three miles away, in the Thirteenth Precinct of the NYPD, Detective John Shannon waved his partner, Willie Danes, over to his desk and pointed at the computer screen. “I was taking another look at Alice Humphrey’s Facebook page.”

“You better watch it. Folks around here might start wondering whether you’re developing a little crush on our former child starlet.”

“Who’s the one who found that profile she created under her alias?” It wasn’t until Shannon discovered the Facebook profile for “Drew Campbell” that they could corroborate the rental agent’s statement that a red-haired woman had been the one to sign the lease for the gallery under that name.

“The partner stumbles across one good find, and now I’m never going to hear the end of it.”

“I think I’ve got another find to add to the growing list. Cute picture of her and her brother, huh?”

Danes bent over to get a better look. “Yeah. Adorable.”

“Notice anything about the decor?”

The older brother, probably high school-aged, looked proud with his arm wrapped around his little sister. She was probably around twelve, still all arms and legs sticking out from her slender torso. They sat on a bright red sofa, a glass-topped chrome coffee table before them, black-and-white-striped wallpaper behind.

They had both seen that room before.

“What the-”

Chapter Forty-Five

A lice maintained a brisk but unexceptional pace down Second Avenue until she reached First Street, when she turned right and broke into a full sprint toward the 6 train at Bleecker. She scurried down the subway stairs and was about to swipe her MetroCard at the turnstile when she stopped herself. Could the police trace a MetroCard that had been purchased on an Amex? If they knew she was on the 6, couldn’t they contact the driver to stop the train? She’d be trapped.

She searched her wallet for cash to buy a new card, but found she was down to her last $14. She wouldn’t get far without more cash.

Ben’s apartment was only five blocks away. She poked her head out from the subway stairs, searching for signs of police, then made her way south on Mulberry, turning on Spring Street, and then south again on Mott. She rang the buzzer, tapping her forehead softly against the door as she prayed Ben would answer. Two more attempts at the buzzer. Nothing.

She was about to give up when a heavyset man emerged from the building, lugging two overstuffed Hefty bags of garbage. The top of his bald head was sweaty despite the cold. The key ring clipped to his belt loop was worthy of a prison warden.

“Are you the super?”

He nodded as he turned sideways to maneuver his stomach and the trash bags past her. Alice grabbed one of the sacks and helped drag it to the curb. “Thanks, lady, but condo only. No units on sale now.”

“My brother lives here. Ben Humphrey?” She fumbled through her wallet to pull out her driver’s license.

“Oh, yeah. From Life with Dad. I know all about his family. You’re all grown up now, but, yeah, I can still see that same face.”

“This is awful, but I managed to leave a file in my brother’s apartment that I desperately need for a meeting I have in, like, less than an hour. And of course, with my luck, Ben’s not home. Is there any way you can let me in?”

One of those people who paid cash for everything, her brother found the $400 cap on ATM withdrawals “miserly” and was in the habit of storing large amounts of cash in his dresser drawer. He jokingly called it his drug- dealer stash.

The super hesitated.

“It will take two seconds. You can even watch me go inside if you need to.” She flashed her warmest, most trustworthy smile. If she had to, she could sneak the money while pretending to look for her file.

“No problem. I know how much Mr. Humphrey loves his sister.” He was already flipping through the keys. They rode up to the fourth floor together. She could still hear the super breathing hard from the exertion of hauling the garbage bags. He slipped the key in the door, but the knob budged on its own. “What do you know? You didn’t even need me.”