On her knees, Liddy looked up. Thecompulsion she’d been resisting finally seized her. It was still there, thebent pipe where Charlie Bass had hung himself. Breath stopped as she stared atit, feeling a slow, cold dread overtake her. Have them fix that first. Makeit disappear…
She rose and backed away, still staring atthe pipe. Looked down and forced herself to turn. Get busy with something else,yes, that’s the ticket. Now she faced the big arched window, ablaze with late sunshining through - and frying the leaves.
She hurried over and started to spray. Up,down, squirt, squirt, the ficus and the ferns, the lemon tree too. Her fingerhurt from pulling the spray trigger; the bottle emptied fast. She knelt to thesmall hose and turned it on, started to refill the spray bottle.
Her phone rang, startling her. “Oh!”
Beth, sounding hyper. “I remember whereI’ve seen that girl! The one you sketched in the café? She’s that missing NYU coed.”
Liddy was confused.
“I mean I think it’s her, they justshowed her photo on the news and it’s been bugging me, like something it wasimportant to remember.”
Still kneeling, Liddy turned off the hose,put down the plastic bottle. Her sketchbook was a few feet away on a stool. Shereached for it and opened it; found the page as Beth’s voice continued.
“Blond and pretty, you said; walked past usonly I didn’t see her. I’ve been racking my brain thinking - wait, she’smissing but suddenly she’s seen just sauntering down a Soho street?” A pause;the sound of Beth’s wheels turning almost audible.
“Then it occurred. Maybe you saw herpicture in the hospital. You’d had a concussion and your leg was up inthat sling thing but you were getting better, so maybe they turned on the TV -they were showing her in the news – and maybe that’s where you saw herand remembered.”
“What’s her name?”
“Sasha Perry. Disappeared in early June.”
“I’ll google her. Wait a sec?”
“I’m here. Tearing around putting outcrackers for an open house but I’ll put you on speaker phone.”
Liddy exited the call, went online on herphone and searched and there was Sasha Perry, her picture and thousands ofhits. Her heart lurched in her chest; for long seconds she couldn’t breathe.
She looked back up to the arched window. Theleaves dripped. The sun glared hot through the glass.
Shakily she went back to her call. “Youthere?”
“Yup, I’m here.” Beth’s voice was yardsaway and then closer.
“It was her.” Liddy’s voice caught as she immediately doubted herself. “I mean, Ithink it was, it looks like her.” She rubbed her brow. “God, my mind isscrambled. So many things I don’t remember right.”
Beth’s voice turned soft, encouraging. “Butit’s coming back, you said, right? Different memories are coming back?”
“Yeah.” Liddy gave a mirthless laugh. “Stuff’sfilling in. I’m not mixing up my drawers anymore or leaving the fridge dooropen or forgetting how to tie my shoelaces. Alex said I’m getting better.”
Alex Minton was the psychiatrist Liddy wasseeing. You’re doing well for having gone through a traumatic experience,he’d said on her last visit. It’s normal, totally human to struggle with forgetfulness,upsetting emotions, frightening dreams or a sense of danger. But you can speedyour recovery with the right treatment, support and self-help strategy.
She had pretty much memorized his words,which was odd: she seemed able to remember what she wanted to remember.Beth was babbling emotionally as Liddy peered around, thinking desperately thathere – oh please, here - was going to be her self-help strategy.
“I could kick myself for getting youupset,” Beth was saying. “I only called because the news said they’re about to closethe case and declare Sasha Perry a runaway, and if you had really seenher I was gonna say call the police? On the other hand it could have beensomeone who just looked like her.”
“I don’t know...”
Liddy’s heart thudded as she looked up atthe plants. The leaves dripped. Condensation on the glass formed a woman’s face.Liddy gaped at it.
“You sound funny. You okay?”
The woman was young. Golden hair in the sun,woeful eyes that begged.
“You there? Liddy?”
“I’m here,” she breathed, blinking. Stoodto touch the face that wept, then melted into sliding tears. Liddy’s heart rocketed.This is crazy, she told herself. Say nothing, you’re just seeing things, Bethwill fret you shouldn’t have taken the loft. “I just feel bad, that’s all,” shefinally managed. “It’s so sad.”
“You’re sensitive. Sorry to sound like anamateur shrink, but that girl’s face probably stuck in your subconscious becauseit’s…another trauma and you identified. Maybe you saw her on this morning’snews too?”
“Maybe. It was on but Paul turned it off.”
“Well there you go. Hey, my mind playstricks all the time.”
“What would I do without you?”
“You’re a survivor. Besides, you have Paultoo.”
“Yes. Paul too.”
9
They had ninety minutes.Just ninety bleeping minutes to grab a roach burger or even a halfway decentlunch but instead were doing this. Alex Brand sighed wearily, which madeKerri feel worse. The air conditioner in her six-year-old Bronco was only halfworking, they’d both been up most of the night with a drive-by shooting, andthe traffic was barely moving under the broiling sun.
“This girl just got back from where?” Alexsighed again.
“Nigeria,” Kerri said, driving, alternatingbetween pressing a chilled Coke to her brow and wiping her sweating neck with anold T-shirt and cursing the whole month of August. “Her name’s Becca Milstein.She’s a first year med student, was a friend of Sasha Perry and just spent sixweeks helping stop the spread of hepatitis B. Wound up getting sick. Wouldn’teven be back already if she hadn’t gotten sick.”
“What kind of sick?”
“Fever of some sort.”
“She say anything about ebola?”
“Didn’t mention it.”
“Did you ask?”
“Damn. Forgot.”
They’d reached Greenwich Village. Alex glaredout as Kerri swung east at Washington Square, heading past the lawn-surrounded,soaring water plumes of the Square’s Fountain Plaza. When she hit Mercer and turnedsouth again, he groaned for her to take him back to the fountain, whining waaaaterlike a movie cowboy crawling through the desert. He used cop humor a lot. Theyall did; it helped some of the time. It also helped the feeling of
